Fluctuat Nec Mergitur
by LadyV77
Summary: Chapter 12: Lies are told and favors are done. Rating for language and future violence. OC heavy fic, features Sparky.
1. Chapter 1

**A note about the title**: "Fluctuat nec mergitur" was once the motto of Paris (it may still be, I don't know). It is Latin and means, "It is tossed by the waves but does not sink." I thought this fitting for two reasons. One, it describes Atlantis itself rather well (sinking is not the same thing as submerging). Two, it also applies to the main character of this story (ok, actually quite a few of the characters, but her especially).

**Continuity/Spoilers**: All of Season 1 and 2, Season 3 through Common Ground (McKay and Mrs. Miller has not yet happened) with the following major adjustment to the timeline: the events of Critical Mass (Season 2) have not happened yet.

**Warnings**: The main cast will be in it quite a bit, but this is an OC-heavy fic. I'm not a fan of Teyla, so there will be occasional bashing of her character, so those who are big fans of hers will not want to read this. As far as I have planned, she does end up redeeming herself somewhat, but that may not be enough for her fans. Pairings include Sparky (Elizabeth Weir and John Sheppard) among others (though I will leave those others to be discovered).

**Reading Key:** (Mostly for future chapters) Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

This story is also posted on deviantart under my screenname there (spideegrrl77) so don't think it's copied if you also lurk on that site.

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It took long moments for Chuck to figure out that there was no incoming wormhole when the alarm sounded. It was the only time he'd heard the claxon-like chiming in the command room after which no event horizon formed in the circular Stargate. He activated the shield anyway as was standard procedure. Confused, he moved a hand to the communications device in his ear to call Zelenka or one of the other technologically-minded scientists of the expedition to check out the apparent anomaly. This action was put off when he heard a shout below him from the 'gate room floor.

Standing from behind his console, Chuck moved to the railing overlooking the 'gate room to see a puddle jumper that had definitely not been there a minute ago. Sergeant Bates, newly returned from Earth and a stint at the SGC, had the jumper surrounded. He and his team were aiming their weapons at the hatch in the rear. After a couple of tense minutes, the ramp-like door lowered. From where he was standing, Chuck could not see into the Ancient vehicle.

But he tensed, his hand tightening on the railing, when Bates shouted, "Wraith!"

Bates immediately fired into the opening with his P90, but something evidently went wrong. The bullets appeared to be ricocheting off of something, and there was a sudden pained scream from inside the jumper. And the Wraith weren't known for showing reactions to pain. A female voice, decidedly human-sounding, cried out, "Marion!" a moment later.

Chuck watched in shocked awe as a young woman walked out of the back of the jumper. The bullets Bates had not stopped firing rebounded off the surface of what appeared to be a personal shield like the one Rodney McKay had had trouble with a few months after the initial arrival in the Pegasus Galaxy. The young woman's hands were up in the classic Earth gesture of surrender, but her face was fiercely angry as she glared at Bates.

"Stop!" she thundered at him, the tone of command in her voice somehow familiar to Chuck. "We are unarmed, and you have already injured one of us."

The Sergeant sneered at her but ceased firing, though he kept his weapon trained on her. "On your knees."

For a moment Chuck thought she would refuse, but she carefully folded one leg and then the other to kneel on the floor at the base of the ramp, her hands still above her head. It was as she was lowering herself that Chuck noted something disturbing. The light reflected off one of the fingers of her left hand. Squinting, Chuck recognized a Wraith implant as the cause of the reflection, his eyes going wide in surprise. As far as he knew, no one from the expedition had come across a human with a Wraith implant before. Not even the trouble-magnet flagship team.

"Now you," Bates demanded of someone in the jumper once one of his team members had trained his own weapon on the young woman.

A Wraith, tall for a human but not for his kind at around six foot four, slowly moved into view, mimicking the human woman's pose of hands-in-the-air surrender. When the Wraith was kneeling beside the woman, Bates motioned for most of his team to surround the two as he crept carefully forward into the jumper, coming back out moments later, pressing a hand to the radio in his ear.

"Major Lorne, you may want to come to the 'gate room, we have some uninvited guests." After apparently receiving a response from the military SIC of Atlantis, seeing as Colonel Sheppard was currently off-world, Bates pressed the device again and called for Dr. Beckett to bring a medical team.

But was the injured party another Wraith or a human like the other invading female?

Chuck took a shaky breath and a glance around, noting that the rest of the personnel of the command room were also at the railing, watching the scene below with curiosity and some fear. He couldn't help wishing Dr. Weir were here to say something calming and authoritative to all of them, but she was in one of the botany labs for a presentation of some of their findings.

Below, the young woman was speaking again, and Chuck tuned back in to hear her, "If one of you isn't going to do it, please let me apply pressure to her wound. I don't want her to bleed to death while we're waiting for Carson."

Chuck started at her knowledge of the Chief Medical Officer's first name, but Bates seemed to take no notice.

"Hand over the shield device first."

Knowing most people would at the very least hesitate to leave themselves unprotected in the face of so many hostile gun-bearing men, Chuck was surprised when the young woman immediately removed the small object from the front of her shirt and held it out toward Bates.

"Stand up," the Sergeant commanded, emphasizing the words with a motion of his weapon. When she had complied, he added, "Toss it to me, gently."

After the transfer had been accomplished, Bates putting the shield into a pocket, he motioned into the jumper with the gun. The young woman walked into the ship with Bates following close behind her.

Chuck noticed that the Wraith watched the movement of the two until they were out of his line of sight, only returning his attention to the men surrounding him when he would have had to turn around to follow Bates and the young woman with his eyes. If he didn't know better, Chuck would think the Wraith was more concerned for the young woman than himself.

Shortly after, Carson came rushing into the room with a gurney and a team of nurses. He stooped short at the sight of the Wraith, a quiet, "oh dear," escaping him. Everyone knew Carson had been more hesitant about being near any Wraith since the second failed attempt to turn Michael and the disaster of the transformation of Michael's hive.

"He doesn't appear to be injured," Carson said after a few moments, not having moved any closer to the Wraith.

To Chuck's surprise, the Wraith answered when none of the soldiers guarding him did. "I was protected. Marion suffered for it. She is inside the jumper."

Carson blinked twice before moving into action, disappearing into the ship with two male nurses. A moment later, Bates and the young woman came back out, the woman's hands now bright red with blood. So this Marion must be human as well. The Wraith's blood, from what Chuck knew, was a much deeper color. The unnamed woman knelt beside the Wraith once more, her gaze on her hands. Her chest and shoulders seemed to be heaving in a way that led Chuck to believe she might hyperventilate at any moment. And then the Wraith leaned subtly toward her, his arm brushing hers lightly. The young woman immediately and quite visibly relaxed, though she still held her hands awkwardly in front of her.

Seconds later, Carson's head popped into view from the interior of the jumper. "Can you come here for a minute, lass?"

Bates frowned at the doctor, but Carson told the soldier, "I need to ask her some medical questions so I can treat the one in here. I doubt an unarmed woman will be able to do anything while she's worried about her friend. And you do have her, uh, other travel companion under guard."

"Alright," Bates consented, waving with the barrel of his weapon for the young woman to go to Carson.

Once again the Wraith watched the human female until she was out of sight. Bates caught the action this time and sneered at the Wraith, a knowing glint in his eyes. The Wraith was saved from any jeers from the Sergeant by Major Lorne's appearance with his own team.

Bates filled the Major in on what had happened since the appearance of the jumper. Chuck noticed the Sergeant downplayed the invaders' cooperation. For some reason he couldn't name, he hoped he and the other witnesses would get a chance at some point to clarify what had occurred. And knowing the Stargate programs' penchant for filling out multiple forms on every incident, he knew they probably would. When Bates was finished with his recitation, Lorne looked up at Chuck and the others.

"Don't you people have work you should be doing?" Major Lorne snapped at the gawkers.

Chuck let go of the railing. Turning back to his station, he sighed. That had been some of the most intriguing drama he'd seen play out in Atlantis, particularly since it hadn't ended up being life-threatening to any member of the expedition. It was a shame that he'd have to find out what else happened through the rumor mill instead of being a direct witness.

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Turning his attention away from the dispersing curious onlookers and back to the situation at hand, Major Evan Lorne frowned. How was it possible that a jumper had gotten into the 'gate room without actually coming through the Stargate? Satisfied that there were already enough men with weapons trained on the Wraith, he glanced at the jumper itself. It was definitely of Ancient design but appeared slightly wider and longer than the Atlantis jumpers. It certainly didn't give him any clues about how it had gotten here or why.

Evan glanced at the Wraith, only to find the white-haired male watching him. Evan frowned again. It took a good deal of restraint not to try to question the Wraith. But he knew Sheppard would want the right to the first interrogation. As not only Military Leader of Atlantis but also the one with the most first hand experience with the Wraith aside from Ronon Dex, it was for the best. It didn't, however, ease Evan's own curiosity any.

The Wraith's attention left him to glance at the ramp leading into the jumper. Evan turned that way too to find a young brunette coming out. She was wiping her hands on a small towel, leaving smears of what was obviously blood. One of Carson's nurses took the cloth from her when she was done. She froze when her blue-green gaze met Evan's blue-eyed stare. She was very pretty, but that wasn't what captured Lorne's attention.

It was the way she was looking at him. Like she knew him.

She looked a bit familiar, but not enough for her to know him the way her gaze suggested she did. Had he met her on one of the planets he'd been to in the Pegasus Galaxy? Evan scanned her from head to foot, looking for anything that might give him a clue to her home planet. Her hair, waist length and thick, was pulled into a low ponytail that fell on the right side of her body, hiding her right ear from view.

Her shirt was a medium blue color with black trim at the neck that angled down the garment diagonally, silver designs stitched into the trim. The odd thing about it was that while it was sleeveless on her left arm, her right arm was covered to just past her wrist. Her pants were black and appeared to be made of thin, supple leather. There were geometric designs cut out of the left leg, but the right was solid. A small bulge in one of her pockets showed that she hadn't been patted down yet, and Evan found himself frowning at a strip of fabric tied around her left bicep. It was a very familiar color.

His gaze left her clothing and returned to her face. She had two tattoos on her face, stylized fire above her left eye and an unidentifiable mark under it. Remembering that a Wraith was one of her companions, Evan wondered if it was a Wraith mark. It was the third tattoo, located on her neck, that gave him a slight clue as to where she could be from. But it made the chance that they'd previously met even less likely and made her association with a Wraith even more of a mystery. It was the same Satedan symbol… and now that he thought about it, it was also in the same place… as the one Ronon Dex sported on his own neck.

The young woman had remained still while he conducted his perusal. When he frowned in confusion, she flinched slightly. Her right hand twitched, as if she wanted to reach for him. Both of her hands curled into loose fists and fell to her sides. She tore her gaze away from his, the action taking obvious effort. Moving slowly so her actions were clearly seen, she walked down the ramp. When she reached the bottom of the ramp and made to lower herself beside the Wraith, Evan cleared his throat.

"Don't bother kneeling," he said. "We need to move you now anyway."

The young woman swallowed visibly and nodded. Her hand lightly touched the Wraith's nearest shoulder. The Wraith stood up and shifted slightly so that he was standing behind the young woman. Turning his attention away from the pair for a moment, Evan watched Carson and his team wheel a younger woman out of the jumper. He glanced into the now-empty vehicle and paled slightly. The machine inside the back of the jumper was recognizable from reports he'd seen in his time at the SGC.

This puddle jumper had time-travel capabilities.

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Elizabeth Weir studied one of the surveillance screens that had been turned on to keep an eye on the latest inhabitants of the holding cell that had gotten a fairly regular workout since the capture of "Steve." The cameras had been set up after the second Wraith to be held in it, "Bob," had been killed. Those in charge of studying what they could of the Wraith wanted to be able to observe the recordings in case of future captures. They'd not had another until now, and Elizabeth had rather mixed feelings about the fact that the Wraith was in there with a human. But apparently, the human had insisted. Her insistence had led everyone to speculate that she was a Wraith worshipper, the existence of whom they'd become aware of when Sheppard and his team had been captured and held by Ford.

Elizabeth hadn't been there when the time travel puddle jumper had suddenly appeared in the 'gate room nor had she seen the events that immediately followed, but she had been caught up on it by Major Lorne based on what Sergeant Bates had told him. The Sergeant had been the one to try to shoot the Wraith that had evidently been traveling with two human females. The younger of the two women had been hit instead and taken to the infirmary.

The second woman had not resisted the actions of Lorne's team in their search of her and their stripping her of her personal effects. The only time she had balked had been when they'd taken a band that had been around her arm and a silver object that had been pulled from a pocket. Elizabeth was still waiting for the objects to be brought to her. The Wraith, too, had been oddly cooperative, but as far as she knew he'd not had anything on him to be taken.

The young human woman had been offered a chance at being guarded in a regular room, but she had insisted on staying with the Wraith if they wouldn't allow her to be with the other young woman in the infirmary. She had paced anxiously, asking every few minutes about Marion, the girl who'd taken the bullet that had ricocheted off what was obviously an Ancient personal shield when the woman now in the cell had stepped in to protect the Wraith. The pacing and asking had only stopped when an odd occurrence had taken over the city.

A melodic chime had rung over the PA system, and no one could seem to figure out where it had come from. But the sound had made the young woman in the cell relax and move to stand behind the Wraith, leaning her head back against his shoulder. The Wraith had reached back slightly with one hand to touch the young woman's fingers with his, but had otherwise not reacted.

John Sheppard came into the surveillance room carrying a bag, and Elizabeth gave him a small smile before turning her attention back to the screen. He came to stand beside her, looking at the screen as well. The young woman's right eyebrow arched upward and Elizabeth glanced at one of the other screens to see that one of the guards, a young Marine that had only been on Atlantis for a short time, was staring rather inappropriately at her. Next to her, John gasped. Elizabeth looked up at him with a question in her eyes, noting that his gaze had remained on the first screen.

"You do that same look, Elizabeth," John said in an odd tone.

The thought made her slightly uneasy considering that there was a chance the travelers had come from the future, but Elizabeth tried to brush off John's comment, "Many women do, John."

Instead of responding verbally, John dumped the contents of the bag on the table in front of them, pushing items, including one she recognized as being an Ancient shield generator, aside to focus her attention on two of them. One was a grayish-blue band of cloth that was oddly similar to the material used to make the jackets and pants of expedition members. John flipped it over to reveal a worn patch that matched the one on his own sleeve and those of most of the expedition, including Elizabeth herself. But it was the second object that sent an odd frisson down her spine. Her father's watch, a little worse for the wear but unmistakable none-the-less, sat innocently on the table in front of her despite the fact that she knew it was resting on the desk in her office.

"You think…" she asked breathlessly, unable to finish her question.

"I think she might be your daughter," John confirmed, an oddly hurt expression on his face.

Elizabeth stared at the screen again, picking out features that resembled her own for a long minute before John cleared his throat and told her, "We should go talk to her." It was only when he remarked, "You should come, too," to the back of the room that Elizabeth realized Ronon had come in as well.

The three of them walked to the holding area together, Ronon moving forward as he evidently noted something of interest. The young woman in the cell straightened and turned to face them. Her gaze passed over Ronon before settling on Elizabeth. Elizabeth scanned the young woman's face before noting the tattoo on her neck that must be the cause of Ronon's interest.

"Are you mine?" Ronon asked abruptly, causing the woman to glance his way and frown.

"No," she answered. "I don't look a thing like you, do I?"

Elizabeth heard a sigh of relief escape John. She blushed when she realized he'd been jealously assuming the same thing.

"No, but…" Ronon trailed off, gesturing to his own tattoo.

"That's a long story," the young woman responded tensely. "And it really has _nothing_ to do with you. At all."

John stepped forward, Elizabeth moving after him a moment later. He hesitated, obviously not sure what to say to the young woman, before moving his gaze to the Wraith. He opened his mouth but was pre-empted by the young woman.

"Call him Ben," she told John with a hint of amusement in her voice. "It's what I named him."

Unshed tears made the young woman's eyes shine as she stared with a heart-wrenching longing at John. Elizabeth sucked in a breath.

"And what should we call you?" Elizabeth asked, barely able to find her voice.

A slight, tremulous smile touched the young woman's lips as she answered, turning her gaze to Elizabeth, "My name is Nycole Sheppard… mother."

_**To be continued…**_

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**Disclaimer**: I do not own Stargate Atlantis or its characters. They are property of MGM Television, SciFi Channel and their affiliates and are used here only to entertain. No infringement is intended and I am not making money off this. Characters created by me… especially Nycole, Marion, Ben and members of Ben's hive… as well as the plot of this story and the actual wording are mine. Please respect that.


	2. Chapter 2

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

As well as posting this story on deviantART, there is also a pic in my gallery of Nycole and Ben from a scene in the first chapter, and there will soon be a picture of a character who appears later in the story.

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Elizabeth heard John suck in a breath and watched as he moved as close as he could to the cell without touching the force field. His eyes searched the face of the tattooed woman much the way Elizabeth had earlier. Nycole could not seem to tear her gaze from him either. Evidently she'd been a daddy's girl. Elizabeth shook her head at the thought; why did she believe all of this so easily? Not that she was going to let their unexpected guests know that. She had to maintain as much of the upper hand as she could, both for her own sake and for the good of Atlantis.

Clearing her throat, she said, "You realize we'll have to verify your claim, of course."

A disappointed look briefly crossed Nycole's face but she nodded. "I'd be more than happy to give Carson as many samples as he'd like."

"If you're my daughter," John asked, his voice slightly hoarse with some unnamed emotion, "why do you have a Wraith as a…"

"Friend?" Nycole finished for him. She glanced over her shoulder at Ben, who'd been watching the proceedings silently, before looking at John once more. "It's a long story, and I think it would be best to wait until you're sure of who I am."

John's brow furrowed slightly, but he responded firmly, "I'm sure."

"John!" Elizabeth gasped in a warning tone.

But Nycole was smiling happily at John who smiled back, neither of them responding to Elizabeth's scold. The younger woman turned her gaze momentarily in the direction of the cell's controls, a look of concentration on her face. The field suddenly dropped. Elizabeth gasped again and took a step back, aware that Ronon had taken a step forward from where he'd been waiting behind them, his weapon now drawn. But the cell remained closed, Nycole simply reaching her right hand through the horizontal slats to clasp John's hand with hers.

"Thanks, Dad," she said softly before retrieving her hand.

A few seconds and another glance from the young woman later and the force field was once more active.

"How did you do that?" Elizabeth demanded.

"I inherited the Ancient gene from Dad," Nycole replied, finally looking at Elizabeth again. "If you have the gene and know how to do it, many of the systems in the city can be controlled by thought. It's how I know Marion has regained consciousness and will be alright. She activated the chime you heard a little while ago. It's one of our signals."

Elizabeth mentally filed the information that Marion had the Ancient gene as well, wondering who the other young woman had inherited hers from. She had to assume Nycole would have already mentioned if Marion was her sister.

"So you've been able to escape the cell from the time you were put in there?" Ronon's gruff voice asked.

Nycole nodded.

"Did he know that?" Ronon further questioned, gesturing with his gun toward Ben.

The Wraith smirked at him, sharp teeth glinting in the light. Ronon growled under his breath.

"Yes," Nycole answered. "He knows everything I'm capable of."

"What exactly does 'everything' entail?" Elizabeth asked. She had always found it exciting, but with a hint of foreboding, how easily John could control some Ancient technology. If Nycole was even better at it, as all indications pointed to, they would be in serious trouble if she wasn't there for a purpose that meshed with that of the expedition. "If you are a threat to this city, we may have to keep you sedated until we know more."

The Wraith finally acted more along the lines that Elizabeth had expected him to, though she never would have guessed it would be in defense of a member of the race the Wraith considered food and little more. Storming to the front of the holding cell, Ben yanked Nycole behind him and growled in Elizabeth's direction. His body was slightly hunched forward, like an animal ready to pounce. Even though she stood several feet away from the bars, Elizabeth felt his presence as if he were directly in her face. Ronon aimed his gun again, but the furious male ignored him.

"Try it and you will find out what _I_ am capable of," he hissed. "If you harm her, you will not live long enough to regret it. Your death will come more painfully and much sooner than the disaster she risked everything to save you from." He seemed to calm slightly and took a step back, allowing Nycole to stand beside him instead of behind. He retained his predator's pose. "Ungrateful _human_."

Elizabeth wisely decided not to point out the irony of him sneering that word at her when he had just been threatening her over another member of her own species. Perhaps this was a clue that Nycole was not who she claimed, that the young woman was _not_ human. She ignored the fact that the idea hurt her personally. Someone pretending to be a relative as part of a con would disenchant anyone.

She tried to keep her voice level as she pointed out, "I am the leader of this expedition, and it is my responsibility to make sure I do everything in my power to keep those who depend on me safe. That includes being extremely cautious with people who show up in Atlantis uninvited. I have no way of knowing _what_ your intentions are."

"Other than _asking_?" Ben sneered. "Why would anyone leave all they know behind to travel to the past unless they were attempting to fix something that went wrong?"

Elizabeth hesitated, but said, "There are many groups who would go to great lengths to gain control of Atlantis."

The Wraith male grinned maliciously at her, "And that is exactly what we are here to stop."

"And I'm just supposed to take your word for it?" Elizabeth's tone showed she had no intention of doing so, her battle to keep her voice diplomatically even lost.

Of all the different scenarios she had read about when Kinsey had first pulled her into the Stargate Program, time travel was not one she'd ever expected to have to deal with personally, let alone twice. First her ten thousand year old other self told the story of an alternate timeline where she had been the only surviving member of the original expedition, and now a young woman that might very well be her daughter was apparently here to "save" them all. At least according to her companion… who happened to be a Wraith. It was almost too much to take in, and her stress levels were bad enough already.

She still hadn't gotten over the latest near miss with John. The fact that there was a Wraith involved in the current situation didn't help matters any. The Wraith were bad enough in normal circumstances. But every time she thought of, let alone saw, one of them in the past couple of weeks, her mind immediately took her back to those horrifying times she'd been forced to watch and listen, helpless, as John was fed upon. There had been nothing she could do. Nothing. All the times he'd saved her, risked his own life, and all she'd been able to do for him was watch. And even that she hadn't been able to continue to do in the end, averting her gaze from what she had been so sure was going to be the death of him.

Ben made a sound between a growl and a hiss and turned his gaze away from her, obviously fed up. Elizabeth watched as Nycole touched the Wraith's arm, the male gazing at her. They seemed to have a conversation with their eyes, and after a minute, the Wraith visibly relaxed, straightening to his full height from the ready-to-attack stance he'd held before.

"I understand your concerns," Nycole addressed Elizabeth. "You don't need to worry about Marion or I taking over Atlantis through the gene. It doesn't work on essential systems, only things like lights, doors and the chimes. The cell is a built in precaution from the Ancients being afraid of being trapped in their own containment area. To affect any major system, I'd have to go into the city's programming physically. As to the reason we're here, I know it will be hard to accept. That's why I brought proof with me. As soon as you're ready to go over it, we will share it with you, but I'll need access to our ship."

Elizabeth nodded in response to Nycole's diplomatic offer, recognizing that waiting would be a hassle at the very least for the young woman, whether she and her two companions were here for reasons fair or foul. But Elizabeth needed to find her bearings before learning anything more from them. "Unfortunately I don't have the time in what's left of today. I'll try to clear time for it tomorrow."

Nycole's jaw tensed, but she too nodded. "May we see Marion?"

"_You_ can, but…" Elizabeth wasn't allowed to finish.

"Never mind," Nycole interrupted her. "It's both of us or neither. Until you're ready to deal with that, we'll both stay here."

John frowned worriedly. "He won't feed on you?"

"No," Nycole answered calmly. "And unless you separate us, he won't feed on anyone else, either."

"Yeah, right," Ronon grumbled, not quite under his breath.

John's frown deepened, but he didn't ask for clarification of the oddity of Nycole's statement. The radio in John's ear suddenly crackled, and he stepped back to take the call. After telling whomever it was to hold on for a minute, he turned to Nycole.

"They can't get the jumper started to move it out of the 'gate room. We're expecting a group of Athosians back from a trading trip soon, and they need more space."

Nycole nodded. "Because of what the ship can do and the fact that everything Marion, Ben and I own is in it, I programmed it to only allow certain people to fly it. You or Ev… _Major_ Lorne will have no difficulties."

John nodded once and briefly spoke to Lorne through his communicator, letting the other man know that he would be able to get the jumper into the bay. Elizabeth, meanwhile, tried to figure out what it could possibly have meant when Nycole almost called the Major by his given name. It hadn't been as surprising when she'd called Carson by his first name since nearly everyone did, but Elizabeth had only ever heard anyone on Atlantis call the Major by his last name.

"I understand why you would allow me to fly it," John said to Nycole when he was done, "or at least I hope it's because you trust me. But why would Major Lorne be the only other person?"

The time-hopping young woman opened her mouth and then closed it for a few moments before she opened it again to speak. Elizabeth was sure she had been collecting herself before answering, but was it because she had to modify the truth, or was there some other reason?

"He's the only other person with the Ancient gene that I trust," she finally answered.

John looked surprised. "Out of the whole expedition?"

Nycole smiled sadly, "It's part of that long story I mentioned."

"Then it will have to wait until tomorrow," Elizabeth said firmly. "Colonel Sheppard, you and your team still need to brief me on today's off-world mission."

John frowned at her formality, and Ronon looked confused. But Elizabeth needed to get some distance from the emotional volatility of the situation, and she needed to know that John wasn't getting pulled any further into Nycole's story. She left the room that held the cell, confident that the two men would follow her.

As she did, she heard the Wraith say sarcastically, "That went well."

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John watched Elizabeth during the meeting she'd used as an excuse to cut short the interview with Nycole. It wasn't that important a meeting, Teyla and Rodney handling most of the report of what they had and hadn't found on the planet. A fairly friendly, simple people who were willing to trade but couldn't offer much since most of what they had was needed by their own people. John added his comments when absolutely necessary, but his focus was elsewhere.

He knew Elizabeth was angry with him for believing Nycole's story without proof, but he couldn't help it. The tattoo on the young woman's neck was one of the first things reported to him by Major Lorne since it seemed to be an identifying mark. Added to the fact that she'd had what was obviously Elizabeth's father's watch, it had made him immediately jump to the conclusion that Nycole was the child of Elizabeth and Ronon.

The jealousy that had followed hadn't really surprised him. After all, Elizabeth had been important to him since the first time they'd met when she'd been so anxious to have him on the expedition. It was the idea that the friendship… he thought of it as the most meaningful relationship of his adult life… that had developed between them while in the Pegasus Galaxy wasn't as unique to her as it was to him that had truly hurt. The thought that she would at some point share something even more profound with Ronon made him wish for several minutes that Ronon had never decided to stay with them, despite his own friendship with the man.

So the swell of relief he had felt when Nycole had immediately dismissed Ronon's identical assumption had been nearly overwhelming. That she claimed to be _his_ instead had knocked any of his usual skepticism right out of the galaxy. It had probably been dangerous and a bit stupid to believe so easily, but when he'd looked at her, he'd _seen_ it. She was his. He had no doubts on that score, knew in a way that defied any common sense that the genetic test Elizabeth had asked Carson to conduct in a quick call before the meeting would prove it. There were physical characteristics Nycole shared with him, things he'd inherited from his own mother, that he recognized. Recognized and rejoiced in. When he'd divorced… ending his ill-fated college-romance marriage which he had long since realized had been an impetuous mistake… and decided that the military was really the only career he was suited for, he'd resigned himself to never having a family. But thanks to Nycole's appearance, he knew it wasn't set in stone. There were still options open to him.

He had wondered how his future self and Elizabeth's had gotten around the frat regs until remembering that Elizabeth wasn't military and they didn't apply to her. He knew whatever had happened couldn't have been smooth sailing though, especially when he remembered how giddy Caldwell had seemed when he'd tried in the past to insinuate there was an "inappropriate relationship" between Elizabeth and John. There were people who would not hesitate to use the knowledge of their feelings to replace one or both of them.

Well, _his_ feelings. He loved Elizabeth. He had for some time now; their run in with the Asurans and almost losing Elizabeth to the replicator nanites had cemented the knowledge in his heart and mind. He'd taken a lot of flak for breaking quarantine to reach her, but there hadn't been a choice for him. He could not imagine being Military Leader of Atlantis without her as Expedition Leader. Could not envision _his life_ without her in it. In hindsight, he didn't know why he had thought his presence would pull her out of what was being done to her, but he would thank God every day that it had worked. John had no doubt in his mind as to what he felt for her. But what Elizabeth felt, he had no idea.

From her negative reaction to Nycole's claim, he had to assume it wasn't anywhere near what he felt. And he knew that now that the idea of a future with them together had presented itself, she would be that much more likely to fight any developing feelings for him. But somehow, it didn't make him regret his own feelings. He was glad that he loved her, was able to love her as much as he did, even if she would never feel the same. There wasn't anything he could do about her thoughts and feelings, so he wouldn't try. He would, however, do whatever he could to get to know their daughter.

John had a suspicion that even when the test came back, Elizabeth would not be doing so.

He sat up as the meeting drew to a close and Rodney stood to leave, anxious to get back to his lab and his latest project, something about refueling depleted ZPMs. Rodney and Teyla had not been informed of any of the details concerning Nycole; they only knew that there were currently three uninvited guests in Atlantis but that they were well in hand.

"If that's everything," Elizabeth was saying, "I'd like to see you all back here at 0900 tomorrow. We'll have a talk with our guests then."

"Good, good," Rodney mumbled. He seemed to remember something and refocused his gaze on Elizabeth. "Did you find out why there was trouble moving the jumper earlier? I should probably be the one to work with it. There are so many possibilities inherent to having a device that powerful."

"You won't be able to, Rodney," John cut in before Elizabeth could answer. "Nycole has it programmed to only accept commands from Major Lorne and myself."

"What? How could she… wait. _Nycole_?" Rodney drew out the name in a mocking way. He rolled his eyes. "Don't tell me another one has fallen for your dubious flyboy charms already."

"Don't be ridiculous," John nearly snarled. "For one thing, I just said her name like a regular person, not all weirdly emphasized like you did. And secondly, and much more importantly, might I add, she's my…"

"John!" Elizabeth cut him off loudly, standing abruptly and glaring in his direction.

Rodney seemed to realize whatever was going on with the intruders was much more interesting than he'd originally thought and set down his laptop to lean forward on the table, still standing. "What's going on?"

"She's their kid," Ronon responded, waving a hand between Elizabeth and John from his spot sprawled in a chair on the other side of John.

"Claims to be," Elizabeth asserted firmly before sinking back into her chair with an exasperated sigh.

Rodney's eyes popped open comically, but for once he was too surprised to speak. He returned to his seat as well, though with significantly less grace than Elizabeth.

"Is there a chance this is true?" Teyla asked softly, looking between Elizabeth and John with her eyebrows raised so high they disappeared beneath her bangs.

"Yes," John answered at the same time Elizabeth admitted, "Possibly."

Elizabeth avoided looking in John's direction as she continued, "Because the jumper they arrived in is also a time machine, there is a possibility that her story is true. Though I don't know how it could be." She paused meaningfully before adding, "I'm having Dr. Beckett check her DNA."

John flinched internally at her vehemence, but he knew now was not the time to confront her about it.

"Are you sure we should wait until tomorrow to hear her story?" Rodney finally found his voice to ask.

"Yes," Elizabeth said firmly.

They all recognized the "and that's final" that her tone clearly said though the words were not spoken. Teyla nodded her head to Elizabeth once, her face showing she was thinking rather hard about the situation. With an apologetic glance at John, Ronon followed the Athosian woman from the room. Rodney exited soon after, mumbling under his breath about overriding the jumper's controls. John remained in his seat, staring at Elizabeth and willing her to look at him. It was a few minutes before she did.

She opened her mouth, but John pre-empted her, not sure he wanted to know what she had been about to say. "I want to take her to see Marion."

Elizabeth blinked and sighed again, much softer this time. "John…"

"Look," he interrupted, leaning forward to convey his sincerity. "I'm not going to endanger the city; you know I would never do that. And it's not like I'm going to take the guard off them. I think we can handle one rather cooperative Wraith and a human girl. Besides, other than showing up, they haven't made any aggressive moves, and the only person that's been hurt was one of theirs."

"You remember what happened when we underestimated Michael," she warned gently.

"That was a mistake," he said flatly. "One I think none of us will make again. Elizabeth, I'll take full responsibility for anything that happens."

She sat back in her chair and sighed, looking down at her hands twisted together in her lap. Though it was nerve-wracking to wait, John remained silent, letting her think his request over.

"Alright," she finally said. "But don't let who she might be make you let down your guard. We've had a lot of close calls lately…"

His first inclination was to remark that they always did, but knew it wasn't the time to joke. Elizabeth had been through a lot lately, having to deal with his almost-death so soon after being forced to believe that reality was a figment of her imagination by the Asuran replicators. They hadn't really talked about it, and sometimes he wondered if part of her had wanted to believe that none of what had happened in the Pegasus Galaxy was real. That she might hurt a lot more than it should.

"I promise," he replied, standing up and turning to leave.

"John." He looked back at her soft voice. "Be careful."

He smiled reassuringly and left, heading straight to the cell room. Major Lorne had taken over charge of the guard on the room, and they nodded to each other in greeting before John headed to the controls and unlocked the cell. Nycole and Ben stayed where they had been standing, both of them watching him.

"I got Elizabeth to agree to let you see Marion," he directed his speech to Nycole, still much more wary of the Wraith. "We'll head over there with your guard intact and then we'll see about getting you something to eat."

"Thank you," Nycole responded with a small smile.

"You're welcome," he grinned back.

She walked out of the cell at a normal pace. Ben followed behind, matching his stride to hers. With their armed escort flanking them on either side, they walked silently through the halls toward the infirmary. Every head they passed turned to stare, but it wasn't many. It was late, and only the night shift were truly active anymore, everyone else already in their rooms for the night. They made it to the infirmary quickly, just in time to nearly literally run into Carson.

"Oh, hello again," Carson greeted Nycole. "I was just coming to see about getting a blood sample from you."

Nycole nodded. "Tell me where you want me."

"Why don't we just put you next to your friend. You were right earlier, the bullet was a through and through, we just had to stitch her up and give her a bit of blood."

"Thank you. You may as well take a blood sample from her for genetic testing as well," Nycole remarked as the group moved en masse further into the infirmary.

"Is she your sister, then?" Carson asked distractedly. "She was calling for her father when she was partially conscience during the surgery."

John expected Nycole to answer in the negative even before she did, thinking that if Marion had been his child as well, she would have already mentioned it. So he wasn't as shocked as the good Doctor by her answer.

"No, we're not related," Nycole said calmly. "Marion is your daughter."


	3. Chapter 3

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

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Carson came to a dead halt as her words sank in, causing Nycole to almost walk into him. John frowned when Ben steadied her with a hand at her waist. The Wraith was aware of his disapproval, apparently, since the male curled his lip briefly at John before he dropped his grip on the young woman. Nycole and Ben were obviously very comfortable with each other… were they more than the friends Nycole had claimed them to be? John felt his skin crawl slightly at the thought.

It was a full minute before Carson whirled around, taking an awkward step back when he realized how close Nycole had gotten. He was nearly as white as his coat and looked to be doing an impression of a fish out of water, his mouth gaping soundlessly several times before he found his voice.

"W-wot?" Carson stuttered, his accent much more pronounced than usual. "My dotter?"

"Breathe, Carson," Nycole commanded kindly but firmly.

Atlantis' CMO took the order to heart and breathed in and out deliberately several times. After a short time, some of the color returned to his face, though his expression remained shell-shocked.

"I don't… How?" Carson floundered before latching on to one question, "Who's her mother?"

Nycole's expression went cold, and she shook her head. "If Marion decides to share that with you, she will do so herself. But she'd prefer it not to be common knowledge."

Carson blinked a few times before conceding, "Alright. Uh… perhaps we should continue with what we were doing."

The group again moved toward a far bed that had temporary curtained partitions set up around it, though they moved slower this time due to Carson's distracted pace. John reined in his impatience, knowing what the other man was going through… though he had taken the news a lot better than Carson. When they reached the bed next to the partitioned one, Nycole hopped up onto it. She stuck out her left arm, which was already bare. Ben stopped at the foot of the bed but had to move further back when Carson shooed the guards away a few feet. The bubble of space was necessary for one of his nurses to bring him the tray containing the necessary instruments for collecting the blood sample from Nycole. Carson tied a piece of rubber tubing around Nycole's bicep a few inches above the elbow.

"You have good veins," the doctor remarked absently, able to put aside his confusion as he entered 'doctor mode'.

He picked up a cannula, a thick needle specifically for use in drawing blood, from the medical tray. John turned his gaze away for a moment when Carson went to pierce Nycole's skin. He _hated_ needles. He looked back in time to see Carson attach a small glass vial with a rubber top to the other end of the specialized needle, watching as it filled with dark red blood. When it was full, he detached the vial and carefully set it on the tray. He removed the cannula from Nycole's arm and grabbed a cotton ball to press onto the puncture site, untying the tourniquet before bending Nycole's arm at the elbow to hold the cotton ball in place.

"Don't bother," Nycole said when Carson reached for a roll of medical tape.

John knew from past experience that the material would have been used in conjunction with the cotton ball to make a temporary bandage over the needle mark.

"If you insist," Carson shrugged.

He watched, just as John did, as Nycole unfolded her arm and tossed the cotton ball, marred by only the smallest dot of blood, into the nearest medical waste receptacle. The skin underneath appeared unblemished. John thought it odd that she had stopped bleeding so fast, but shrugged it off. If she was anything but human, which he highly doubted, Carson would know soon enough. The doctor picked the vial back up, along with a felt tip pen.

"Do you need to draw my blood, too?" John asked as Carson carefully wrote on the vial's label.

"No, Colonel. We have enough of yours and Elizabeth's in the blood bank."

John nodded. "How long is the test going to take?"

Carson glanced up at him after handing the vile of Nycole's blood to one of his nurses. "Elizabeth has asked me to put a rush on it, so unless something else pressing comes up, I should have the results sometime tomorrow afternoon."

"Good," John responded. "Can she see Marion now?"

The Scottish doctor swallowed visibly as he looked at the curtained bed a few feet from where they standing. "I'll check if she's conscious. We shouldn't disturb her sleep after what she just went through."

John nodded and watched Carson hesitantly go to the partitioned bed. He thought for a moment that maybe Nycole should have waited to drop the news on Carson until Marion was doing better but then dismissed the idea. Although Carson was reeling now, there would have been more questions and doubts if Nycole had waited to share the information.

Marion was apparently awake, Carson sliding one of the panels around the bed out of the way so Nycole could come closer. The other girl looked years younger than Nycole, probably in her late teens or early twenties. She also appeared to be a few inches shorter than Nycole. Not surprising since Carson was several inches shorter than John in height. Marion had hair the same color as Carson that was cut to fall just past her shoulders. She had brown eyes that were light and appeared almost hazel in color due to lighter flecks in the irises. Despite her current paleness due to… John assumed… blood loss, it was apparent that her skin had a healthy tan.

She was a pretty girl, but John thought Nycole was more beautiful. And it wasn't just because he was biased. Nycole had a discernible vitality to her that Marion seemed to lack, though that may have been due to the younger girl's injury.

Nycole moved to the head of the bed and grasped the hand Marion reached out to her. "I'm so sorry, Mare. I should have had you stay behind Ben."

Marion squeezed the older girl's hand with hers and immediately dismissed her guilt. "It's not your fault. How well did your reception go? They must have at least backed off some if they're letting you come see me."

Nycole shrugged expressively, "About as well as expected. Dad believes me; Mother doesn't. They're going to genetically test you and I to see if we're who I say we are. They're keeping Ben and I in the cell."

The prone girl made a face. "I think I'm glad I got shot."

Nycole let out a small laugh.

"You told Papa…" Marion let her question trail off.

"I told him you're his," Nycole confirmed. "He's a bit shocked."

Marion turned her face away, and John shifted, uncomfortable, when it became clear that she was crying quietly. Nycole sighed and squeezed her friend's shoulder. She stepped back and pulled the partition back into place before turning back toward John.

"Let's go," she said softly.

"The mess is this way," he remarked as they reached the hallway.

She smiled, though her eyes remained sad from the confrontation with Marion, and reminded him, "I know, Dad."

"I suppose you do," he agreed with a grin.

They walked silently until just before the mess, Ben once more acting as Nycole's shadow.

"If…" Nycole hesitated, "If you'd prefer that I didn't call you that, I can call you something else."

John stopped and turned to face her. "Nycole, I told you I believe you. I meant it. And I don't think I'd like you to call me anything else. It would be weird."

Nycole smiled a little happier than last time. Glad to have been able to cheer her up a bit, John led the way to the counter where food was left out for the members of the expedition who were on the night shift. He was glad there were very few people in the room, thinking that Nycole would have been uneasy with a lot of people staring at her and Ben.

_I wonder if Ben eats_, he thought.

He glanced beyond Nycole, who had taken a sandwich and a salad, to see that Ben was indeed putting things on a tray of his own. He had chosen the same items as Nycole but was sneering at the plastic wrapped food. John mentally shrugged and took his own tray of food to a nearby table. With all the excitement earlier and the fact that he and his team had been off-world later than usual, he hadn't eaten dinner. When Nycole and Ben sat on the other side of the table from him, his daughter directly across, he signaled the men guarding them that it was okay to back off a few feet.

The sneer faded from Ben's face as they unwrapped the food. Sudden insight struck as the light scent of the food drifted into John's awareness. The Wraith had two sets of nostrils. Why would they have the extra sensory features unless they used them? The plastic wrap that kept the food fresh for the sporadically hungry late shift masses had prevented Ben from being able to completely inspect it. John could understand how that would be annoying if you weren't used to it. He scowled to himself when he realized he was trying to understand a _Wraith_.

The meal passed in relative silence. John wanted to ask questions, to hear about his daughter's life and the reason she came to a past where she didn't even exist yet. But he knew he was already pushing his luck with Elizabeth by treating Nycole better than any other "prisoner" they'd had before. Until the results of the blood test came back, he had to be extra careful to watch how far and hard he pushed.

When they were done and had bussed their trays, John led the group first to one of the public restrooms so the two prisoners could relieve themselves and wash up, and then back to the cell. He nodded a good night to Nycole and turned to talk briefly to Major Lorne, who would be in charge of the first night shift guard duty.

He trusted Lorne. Both with being his SIC when Lorne was in Atlantis, and with watching Elizabeth's back when he couldn't be around. In fact, he'd lately been thinking of asking Lorne to consider staying in the Pegasus Galaxy full time instead of splitting his time between Atlantis and the SGC as he currently did. And now that John had another person who could potentially mean so much to him, he knew he'd have to ask soon. There was no one on the other half of the Atlantis-SGC rotation that he trusted half as much.

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Evan Lorne shifted his stance slightly to be in a more comfortable standing position. It was far from the first time he'd had a watch or guard duty that kept him on his feet for hours on end, and he knew which standing positions would wear him down less. He wanted to keep as rested as possible; Sheppard would be relieving him at 0400 and the meeting in which the intruders would supposedly explain themselves would be at 0900, meaning he'd get a lot less sleep than he'd like.

But there was no way he was missing out on hearing this story first hand. Especially after what Sheppard had told him about Nycole and all that he'd overheard as part of the guard escorting she and the Wraith through the city. Now that he knew the genetic history she was claiming, Evan knew why she'd looked familiar when he'd first seen her. She was a mix of both of her parents, if that's indeed who Weir and Sheppard were to her, in looks. He wondered how else she was like either of them. Both of Atlantis' leaders had earned his respect and loyalty, and Evan wondered if she would too… as long as she truly was who she claimed to be.

At the moment, Nycole was pacing the interior of the cell with a thoughtful frown on her face. Her Wraith companion was watching her. After a few minutes, she stopped with a sigh and rolled her shoulders. Something silently passed between she and the Wraith, and he moved to stand beside her. Moments later they were doing a series of stretches and stances that reminded Lorne of certain, less aggressive, martial arts from Earth. Their movements were perfectly synchronized, leading Evan to believe they'd done the routine together many times.

Twenty minutes later, the choreographed exercise session stopped and the Wraith moved back to the side of the cell he'd been standing in previously. Nycole returned to pacing. Nothing else of interest happened for quite some time.

The Wraith had been staring off into space, his eyes appearing out of focus, when the young woman suddenly turned to him and said, "I'm tired."

The male's eyes cleared, and he glanced briefly at the empty floor of the cell. A moment later he sent a sneer at the guard on the other side of the doorway from Evan. It was then that Evan realized they'd both avoided looking at him. It made him wonder how his future actions had affected the beings in the cell.

He was considering calling Colonel Sheppard about putting cots in the cell when the Wraith moved to the center of the cell and sat on the floor, his legs straight out in front of him. Nycole moved around him and lay down with her head in his lap, laying on her right side and facing the front of the cell. Seconds later even he, several feet away, could see that she was shaking slightly.

"Cold?"

She nodded to the Wraith's question and sat up when he indicated with a hand motion for her to do so. The Wraith stood and unfastened his long coat, peeling it off quickly and efficiently. Beneath it he was wearing a fitted pair of leather pants and a black sleeveless shirt that appeared to be made of a thin, cotton-like material. Unlike the coat, the clothing beneath did nothing to hide his lean strength. He returned to his seated position… Nycole likewise lying back down… and spread the coat over her. With her knees slightly bent to shorten her body's length, she was completely enveloped from the shoulders to past her feet by black leather.

The Wraith slid his hand under the coat and Evan tensed for a moment, but from the position of his arm and lack of movement, he could tell the Wraith was just resting his hand on Nycole's shoulder. The fact that it was the Wraith's left hand was the biggest aspect of Evan's ability to let it go. The feeding slit was always in the right hand, as far as he knew. The thought made his gaze move to the Wraith's right hand, which was resting on the floor. There was a fingerless glove covering the Wraith's palm. So Nycole's assertion to Sheppard that her companion would not feed on her was even more likely to be true. But the glove didn't mean the Wraith _couldn't_ feed. After all, they fed through layers of human clothing all the time.

Evan unfocused his gaze slightly so that he was watching the cell instead of its occupants, not wanting visions of fed-upon corpses dancing in his mind's eye for the rest of the night. And if he kept thinking about the Wraith and what he might or might not do, Evan knew it would happen. Part of being an artist was having a vivid imagination, and for him that meant a visual memory that was sometimes more of a burden than a blessing. Especially with some of the things he'd seen since joining first the SGC and then the Atlantis Expedition.

"Sir, bathroom break?" the young lieutenant across from him asked a few minutes later.

Evan nodded, "Be quick about it."

He wasn't worried, even if anything happened while the younger man was out of the room, there were two more armed guards just a few feet away outside the short hallway that led into this room.

The lieutenant had been out of the room no more than a handful of seconds when Evan felt a gaze on him. Focusing once more on the two occupants in the cell, he saw that the Wraith was now looking directly at him. Nycole appeared to be asleep, her eyes closed and her breathing deep, slow and even.

"You were thinking about doing us a kindness earlier," the male spoke smoothly, though there was an inherent roughness to his voice. "I thank you."

Slightly disturbed to know the Wraith had at the very least read his surface thoughts, Evan nevertheless nodded in response. He stepped a few feet closer so they could converse without raising their voices enough for the guards down the short hallway to hear.

"I can ask Colonel Sheppard about getting a couple cots if you'd prefer," he offered.

"Thank you, but no," the Wraith replied. "Nycole is comfortable now, and I do not require sleep on this night." He hesitated before adding, "She desires to be as undemanding as possible until she is believed."

Confused that the Wraith would share that information with him when earlier they had essentially been ignoring him, Evan frowned. "Did I… do something to either of you?"

The Wraith tilted his head, his expression…what little there was of it… curious. It was harder to read facial expressions when the being you were looking at lacked eyebrows and the small, expressive muscles around them. The Wraith waited silently, and Evan took it as a cue to explain his question.

"Earlier you both avoided looking at me. I was concerned that my future self had done something to make the two of you… dislike me, I suppose. Colonel Sheppard and Doctor Weir are my superiors, and I respect both of them a great deal. I'd hate to think I did something they wouldn't have approved of."

The Wraith looked down at the young woman sleeping with her head on his lap before glancing back up at Evan. "It is her story to tell, and she prefers to tell it all at once. But you need not worry."

The end of the male's statement had been rather quick and ended abruptly, so Evan wasn't too surprised to hear footsteps coming a few moments later. The lieutenant who'd left to use the facilities returned to his post, and Evan walked casually back to his own spot near the wall. Now he was looking forward to that meeting at 0900 even more.

**_To be continued…_**

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**Author's Note:** This chapter is slightly shorter than the others, but it needed to be cut off where it was. The next chapter, which should be up tomorrow night or the next day, is the meeting.

If you want to see a picture of Nycole and Ben, as well as ones of their Queen or Thale, a character from future chapters, go check out my deviantART account, the link to which is in my bio on the profile page.


	4. Chapter 4

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note:** This chapter is a bit longer than others have been or will be, but it's for a reason. Rodney wouldn't quit interrupting and then Evan wanted it made clear about how he felt.

Anywho… Prizax, a planet I created and that is first mentioned in this chapter, is pronounced Pree-zay. Prizax, Arkin (are-kin), Elai Latethyo (ee-lay law-teh-thigh-oe) and Deyta Lei (day-tah lee) are my own creations, please do not steal them.

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John resisted the urge to use his feet to twirl the chair he was in. He was bored and very anxious for the meeting to start. He wasn't the only one. Everyone in the room was showing signs of impatience. He was surprised Rodney hadn't started vocally complaining yet, the grumpy man leaving it to occasional grunts and heavy sighs to show his displeasure at wasting his precious time. Even Teyla, usually fairly unflappable, was frowning and glancing toward the door. The conference room was the fullest John could ever remember it being when not filled by whole science teams trying to solve the expedition's latest problem.

Ben and Nycole were sitting along one of the large table's three sides, a team of four Marines standing with their backs to the wall behind them. John was sitting with Elizabeth and Lorne on another side, and Teyla, Rodney and Ronon were on the third. It was 0922 and the meeting had yet to start. Carson was running late.

John's morning had already been pretty busy. He'd relieved Major Lorne and his team at 0400, getting a short briefing on the night's events from the Major. A couple hours later Nycole had woken and he'd taken she and Ben to the mess again, for breakfast this time. There had been more people in the room this time. Most of them had stared in varying degrees of curiosity and shock.

Although Ben had been tense the entire time, both he and Nycole had taken their cues from John and ignored everyone else, eating quickly and quietly. He'd delivered them to the conference room early and set about putting pitchers of water and glasses on each side of the table, not knowing how long Nycole's story would take. He hadn't asked her, knowing if he started asking questions it would be nearly impossible to stop.

John turned his attention back to the present. Elizabeth had just reached toward the radio on her ear when the man they were waiting on appeared in the doorway. Carson was escorting a somewhat slow moving Marion, whose arm was in a sling to keep the weight of it off her injured shoulder.

"Sorry, sorry," Carson apologized as he led Marion to a chair next to Nycole's. "Marion insisted on being here for the meeting, and since she is doing much better today… well, here we are."

Marion smiled shyly as everyone watched while Nycole pulled the chair out for her friend.

"Very well," Elizabeth started to speak.

"Just a moment, Elizabeth," Carson interjected as he made his way to the empty chair on her other side. He pulled out a file that had been tucked under his arm and placed it on the table. "I stayed up last night and ran the tests myself. Nycole was telling the truth."

John sat up straighter. He smiled at Nycole, who smiled back calmly without the slightest hint of surprise, before he turned his attention back to Elizabeth and Atlantis' CMO. Carson slid the file to Elizabeth, who opened it in a seeming trance, her lips parted slightly. John wished he knew what she was thinking as she stared at the top sheet of paper, which he didn't think she was actually seeing.

"So, she is the daughter of Colonel Sheppard and Doctor Weir?" Teyla asked the confirmation question they all wanted to know the answer to when the silence stretched.

"Yes, and Marion is my daughter."

Teyla blinked and Rodney's head snapped around to stare at the second girl. Ronon and Elizabeth glanced at Marion as well, but not with as much shock or drama as Rodney. John wondered for a moment why they were all surprised until he remembered that of those in the room, only he and Lorne had been there when Carson had learned that little bit of news.

"Who's her mother?" Rodney asked, his voice more highly pitched than usual.

There was a silence for long moments, tense on the part of their two human visitors from the future, before Carson cleared his throat and said, "Marion feels that it isn't necessary for anyone to know that information."

"Has she at least told you?" Ronon rumbled.

Carson shook his head, "No, but I haven't asked. We haven't really had a chance to talk yet. I had just finished the testing before we came here from the infirmary."

Elizabeth, who looked a bit paler than usual, cleared her throat. Carson's file was firmly lodged beneath her forearms on the table.

"Perhaps we should get to the reason for this meeting." She made a 'go ahead' hand gesture to Nycole, who nodded once in acknowledgment.

"All of you know, of course, that I have a friend who is a Wraith," the tattooed young woman began. "You probably all wonder how that can possibly be when I was born here on Atlantis to two members of this expedition. I want to assure you first that I am not, nor have I ever been, a worshipper. I know what the Wraith are, and gods they aren't, though I've never heard one actually claim to be, even those who_have_ worshippers. I have a healthy respect for what the Wraith are capable of, but I'm not afraid of them. Not anymore. Until I was seven, the Wraith were the monsters under the bed, the things hiding in the shadows and behind the closet door. And then my home was taken and most of the people I knew and loved were killed, and it _wasn't_by the Wraith. It was by a group of humans bent on domination of this galaxy. From then on, the Wraith were nowhere near as scary or hated by me as the Genii became."

"The Genii?" Elizabeth interrupted, a hint of disbelief in her tone. "Cowen might have been less than a good man, and Kolya is definitely an enemy, but Ladon has so far made it very clear that he values the alliance he has with us."

"Ladon Radim will only be in power for another year," Nycole responded dismissively. "He may have some cunning, but he is nowhere near ruthless enough to maintain control of those people. Deceit and distrust are the two lessons the Genii learn from the cradle, but for some reason Ladon never learned those lessons well enough. The Genii will be ruled by several different men over a two year period before a man named Elai Latethyo will take power. He will unite the different factions of Genii and convince them that their way is the only way, and that the rest of the galaxy should fall in line or get out of the way. By force if necessary. Latethyo will win the loyalty of other powerful men by making them the governors of the planets annexed by the Genii army. And it will be a plan of his that will capture Atlantis and kill most of her people."

"Who sent you back?" Rodney suddenly interrupted. "If _most_ of us were dead, at least some of us had to survive. I'm guessing that whoever did feared a time paradox if they sent someone back who already existed."

It was obvious from his tone and the way he was holding his head proudly that he considered himself one of the few people with the intelligence to worry about such a thing.

Nycole shook her head. "No one sent me, it was my choice to come. I was the last surviving Atlantean, and time paradoxes weren't my concern. After all, my own mother had a double in Atlantis for a short time without any ill effects. If you'd actually let me tell the story in order, this might go a little smoother."

Rodney rolled his eyes and sat back, crossing his arms over his chest in a definite pout. "By all means."

John wanted to ask about her assertion that she'd been the last Atlantean when another who had come back was sitting right next to her, but he respected Nycole's desire to get the story out in one fell swoop. And he wanted to hear it the way she decided to tell it. They would have time to get to know each other, time for him to ask more in depth questions about the life she'd led in what would have been his future.

"Anyway," Nycole shook her head slightly. "In a week or so Dr. McKay's sister, Jean Miller, will come up with a mathematical physics proof that will fit the theory Dr. McKay is working on to try to draw zero-point energy from a parallel space-time. McKay will believe that there will only be an astronomically slim chance of the parallel universe on the other end of the resulting bridge being populated. Unfortunately, the chance_won't really_ be so astronomically slim and when the hole is punched from our universe to another, that universe's McKay will come here to inform all of you that the experiment is having disastrous results in his universe. His team will be trying to find a way to attack this universe to save their own, so the decision will be made to close the bridge before anything else can happen. It will take so much energy and effort to get him back and to seal the bridge to prevent any further damage that the ZPM will be completely depleted, which with a sequence of other events will lead to the Atlantis expedition once more being stranded here."

"Jeannie's a housewife," McKay snorted dismissively. "How could she possibly come up with…"

"Getting married and having children does not lower your intelligence," Nycole snapped at him. "And if a blow to your ego is all you got out of what I said, you weren't listening. Bringing her here and using that equation would be _a mistake_. This expedition needs occasional support from Earth, and Atlantis certainly needs that ZPM."

"What about the Daedalus?" Elizabeth queried; John recognized that she was taking the opportunity to ask a question since McKay had already provided the interruption.

Nycole shrugged. "It will be able to make a total of two trips from and back to Earth, allowing those who were only on temporary assignment here to go back. Though some will choose to become permanent members of the expedition, like Major Lorne, who was given a promotion to Lieutenant Colonel shortly before the Daedalus disappeared on its way back to Earth." She inclined her head in Lorne's direction, and John glanced at the Major to see him nodding thoughtfully. "Another ship, the Apollo, will be sent, but will be destroyed on its return trip to Earth by the forces of the Ori. After a one off to send a message through the 'gate with help from the Asgard, the battle with the Priors and the army of Ori followers will prevent Earth from being able to attempt any more inter-galaxy contact or trips for some time. I have no way of knowing if they ever tried after a time about nine years from now."

"Is that when the Genii attack occurs?" John asked when she paused to take a sip of water.

After swallowing, Nycole nodded, and her tone became tense as she continued. "I was seven. My Dad woke me in the middle of the night, took me to the Jumper Bay and sent me away. When all was said and done, Carson and Marion Beckett as well as Evan Lorne and myself were the only survivors. We wound up living on Prizax, a planet inhabited by the Athosians and Satedans, knowing that among the handful of allies we had, they were least likely to hand us over should the Genii ever come looking."

John was surprised by the shortness of the recitation of what had to have been one of the most emotionally important nights of Nycole's life. But then, she had been rather young; maybe she had forgotten most of it.

He wasn't the only one with a reaction.

"All of us? We _all_ died?" Rodney sputtered.

"Technically, _you_ had already been dead for almost five years," Nycole replied. "And at the time Lorne and Carson did assume that some of the others must have survived as prisoners of the Genii, but at a much later date I learned that they had kept no prisoners. They killed everyone. And to press upon you the true weight of that, Marion and I were not the only children on Atlantis at the time, just two of the oldest."

"What?" Rodney screeched. "How do I die?"

"They killed children, too?" Elizabeth asked more calmly.

Nycole nodded, her eyes swirling with emotions that she kept from showing beyond that. After several seconds, she answered Rodney's question.

"It was just another routine 'let's try to fix what the Ancients couldn't' experiment, until it wasn't. You and three other scientists were dead before the device could be destroyed. I was only two at the time, but I've since read the reports."

"Do you have the reports?" Elizabeth asked before Rodney could. "It sounds like this device is something we should get rid of before anything can go wrong."

"Yes," Nycole answered hesitantly. "But until you trust me, trust _us_, I'm reluctant to give you things you might not be prepared to know about." Elizabeth opened her mouth to say something, but Nycole, who had already been shaking her head, continued, "I suppose if you're going to trust me, I'll have to keep giving. I'll give you that report and the ones I referred to when I said I had proof of the Genii's attack as soon as you let me have access to our ship."

John felt Elizabeth's eyes on him and nodded to her before telling Nycole, "I'll take you there after the meeting."

"Okay," Nycole responded. She faltered slightly as she continued with her story, tripping over Lorne's name again, "Ev-Lorne acted as my guardian until he was killed when I was nearly fifteen. After that I lived with Carson and Marion for about a year and a half before I joined the Satedan settlement, becoming the protégé of their leader, Arkin. Shortly after I turned eighteen, I went off planet with a small group of Athosians for a trading trip, acting as their guard. It wasn't the first time I'd done so, but this time when we came back, we found that the planet had been attacked and no one had been left alive. The type of weapons used seemed to point to the Genii, but it could have been a number of groups. We buried everyone, and I gathered up everything that had originally been from Earth or Atlantis and moved on."

"The Athosians left alive had offered to let me make a home with them, but," she shook her head, "I was always more of a warrior than a farmer. For awhile I lived a quiet life on a planet that had once been allies with the Satedans, using my hunting skills to work for a fur trader. About two years later, the planet was annexed by the Genii. I seized the chance presented to me by volunteering for the Genii army. Having received training from Lorne since I was very young and, after his death, from Arkin and some of the other Satedans, I already had enough skill to move up in ranks quickly. Eventually I was able to ingratiate myself to one of the higher ups named Deyta Lei, and he had me moved into a squad that was based on the Genii home world. Because of Lei's patronage, I was pretty much left to my own devices in my down time. I used that to learn where their nuclear devices were kept as well as other strategic information. I began a plan to get my revenge."

"Their nuclear devices," Elizabeth echoed softly. At a normal volume, she asked, "You planned to destroy a whole planet of people?"

Angry fire blazed in Nycole's eyes as she pinned her mother with her stare. "They took my entire world from me. I would point out the dozens of other planets they attacked and subjugated as well, but in all honesty, it was always about getting vengeance for me and mine. You never know what you're truly capable of until you've lost _everything_. The only thing I had left to lose was my own life, and at the time, that wasn't worth a whole lot to me or anyone else."

"Still," Rodney spoke, "an entire planet, that's mass murder on a rather large scale."

John wanted to hurt the scientist for needlessly prodding what was obviously still an open wound, especially right after that comment about her life not being worth anything. But he quickly realized that Nycole was more than capable of defending herself.

"Says the man who destroyed most of a solar system," Nycole snapped back. "And I don't care if you believe it to have been uninhabited at the time," she nearly growled. "Life will _never_ thrive in that solar system because of what you did."

Surprisingly, though maybe it shouldn't have been considering his desire to revenge his own people, it was Ronon who ended the argument with a firmly spoken, "I don't blame you. They deserved it."

Nycole inclined her head in Ronon's direction, John assumed as a sign of thanks. She once more lifted the glass of water in front of her to her mouth. John thought it had more to do with giving herself time to calm down than because she was truly thirsty.

"During one of my explorations into typically off-limit areas," she eventually continued her story, "I accidentally came across a section of an underground lab that housed a Wraith Queen and three males that had been captured years before when their hive was still hibernating. The Genii had been conducting experiments on them. I knew my plans would work better if I had help, so I made a deal with the Queen to release the four of them if they would help me destroy the Genii. They agreed and…"

She broke off when Ben started growling. A second later both she and Marion were looking at Ben. Almost as one, all three turned to glare at Teyla.

"Stop." The single word was hissed at the Athosian woman by the Wraith male and held a definite menacing tone.

"What? What's…" John suddenly realized what was going on. "Teyla, are you trying to read him?"

Teyla looked not the least bit chagrined to have been caught, merely lifting her eyebrows in that way she had that said 'you will see things my way at some point'.

"I asked her to," Elizabeth answered for the other woman, Teyla inclining her head once as she did. "Even with Nycole telling the truth about who she is genetically, we needed to be sure it was safe for him to be here."

John turned his head to see Nycole looking at Elizabeth with a disappointed expression.

"I'm not even going to…" Nycole sighed, "She won't be able to read him. Ben was trained by a Queen to resist. So was I, for that matter, not that Teyla could read me even if I hadn't been since I'm not a Wraith. But, it's an annoyance and we'd appreciate no future attempts."

"If you don't give us a reason to attempt it, we won't," Elizabeth conceded.

Nycole's lips compressed in a frown, but she nodded in acceptance.

But before she could get back to her story, Lorne spoke up, "You've done that before, communicated with him without saying anything. And it seemed like all three of you just did. Are you speaking telepathically?"

"Yes." It was Marion who responded, speaking in the meeting for the first time. Her voice was softer than Nycole's but held a certain edge that said she was protective of her friend. John liked her more already. "It's rather limited for me, I have to be in close proximity, and I'm only included when it's necessary. But for Nycole… well, it's an aspect of an upcoming part of the story."

Lorne nodded in a slightly distracted manner. John wondered why Nycole hadn't been the one to answer when he knew from what she'd said last night that she trusted the Major. And from what she'd said today, Lorne had raised her for several years. Why was she avoiding interacting with the man?

When no other questions were immediately forthcoming, Nycole went on. "The plan went smoothly until the actual final escape before the main explosions. I had set smaller, non-nuclear explosions to distract from the larger plan, and we had to go too close to one when our original escape route was cut off. I put myself in front of the blast, saving the Queen from injury, but I was severely injured. Two of the Wraith were killed outright. At the Queen's command, the remaining male healed me, but he was only strong enough to repair some of the damage because of his near-starved state. I have burn scars on several areas of the right side of my body, and I lost most of the hearing in my right ear. We made it off the Genii home world and were eventually able to find the Queen's hive. I was tattooed and implanted with my finger armor for my part in saving them. I also had them give me a tattoo of the Satedan symbol for warrior in memory of Arkin and the other Satedans."

John glanced over at Ronon, not having known that was what the symbol meant until now. But then, he'd never asked the other man about it. John didn't really know much about his teammate's past before he'd been a Runner. After the way Ronon had reacted to seeing Sateda in it's destroyed state when they'd sent the MALP through after first meeting him, John hadn't felt comfortable probing into Ronon's past. He'd always figured if Ronon felt like talking about it, he would.

"What do the two on your face mean?" Elizabeth asked in the pause in Nycole's speech.

Nycole reached up and brushed the mark under her eye with her fingertips, "This one is the mark of the Queen. It is meant to show that I am not to be fed upon. The marks of Queens are widely known, so it is to protect me from any Wraith and not just those of her hive. The stylized fire above my eye symbolizes the explosions that destroyed the Genii."

"What is the purpose of the implant on your finger?" Teyla queried.

"It allows me to access Wraith tech." Nycole glanced once more at Ben before continuing. "As part of my reward, the Queen also asked that one of the males of the hive bond with me. Bonding gives a human a connection to the Wraith they are bound to, and therefore to the hive. A big part of that is the telepathy that is the main form of communication in the hive. The bond also extends the human's life slightly and gives them limited self-healing abilities." She gestured to Carson, "It's why I stopped bleeding almost as soon as you removed the needle from my arm. The downside is that the Wraith that is one half of the bond has their life permanently tied to the human's. It's something of a symbiotic relationship. The Wraith no longer has to feed, only needing frequent skin-to-skin contact with the one they are bonded to. But when the human half of the bond dies, so does the Wraith."

Everyone but Nycole and Marion focused shocked gazes on Ben. Why would a Wraith ever agree to shorten their life that much for a human? He sneered at them and shifted in his seat. Nycole cleared her throat to bring everyone's attention back to her.

"Many volunteered because it would give status to their family lines despite the fact that it would significantly shorten their own lives," Nycole said, "but the Queen chose the warrior that had survived the escape instead of any of the ones in the hive because she knew he understood what I had done for her, and for him. Because I was raised to address people by a name, I called him Ben. After the bonding ceremony, I lived with the hive for about a year before I felt the need to live under a sky again, not used to living on a ship all the time. Ben and I found an uninhabited planet to live on, going on occasional explorations of our planet and ones near it in darts given to us by the Queen. We found a crashed Ancient city-ship like Atlantis on one planet and explored it. I was able to activate various artifacts because of the Ancient gene, one of them being the time travel puddle jumper."

She cast another glance at the Wraith sitting beside her before she went on. "Even though it was a lot to ask, I asked Ben to go back with me and get Marion and Carson away from Prizax on the day they died before going back to save Atlantis and its inhabitants. He agreed and we made the trip. Ben stayed in the ship so there would be fewer explanations to handle in the limited time we had when my past self would be off the planet. I went to Marion and Carson and was able to convince them of the truth, but Carson decided he couldn't come with us because of the complications of there being two of him. Marion protested, but Carson sedated her and told me to just take her, not giving Marion a choice. She was understandably upset when she woke later in a ship with just a Wraith and me. It took some time to convince her that she had nothing to fear from Ben, time we spent in hiding."

"And I don't have anything to fear from him," Marion added. "The only time he ever threatened me was when I was treating Nycole very poorly because she hadn't saved my father. I don't expect any of you to just take our word for it, but it's true. He won't attack unless provoked. Though heaven help you if he is provoked. Don't make the mistake of thinking he's tamed just because he no longer has to feed."

"Thanks, Mare," Nycole said dryly, probably because Marion had managed to still make Ben sound like something of a threat. "It was many months later that we finally decided on when to go back. We knew we would have to convince all of you not to trust the Genii. So we went forward in time to when Ben and I had come back from and enlisted the aid of the Queen's hive to take Atlantis back from the remaining Genii. Once we had, we collected the evidence I spoke of yesterday. Marion and I also spent time relearning Atlantis from top to bottom, not having been here since we were children. When we felt there was nothing more we could do to prepare, we made the trip back. You know the rest."

There was silence for long minutes while the rest of them absorbed Nycole's recitation of the story of how and why she, Marion and Ben had come here. Finally, Elizabeth spoke.

"I'd like the three of you to go into the hall with the guards while we discuss what to do."

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Nycole pushed one of the wheeled chairs into the hallway so Marion could still rest while they waited for the leaders of Atlantis to come to a decision. Marion smiled and sank down into the chair with a small sigh. Nycole moved closer to the wall to stand beside Ben; the team of Marines was standing two on either side of the hall. Nycole sighed mentally at the thought of living under constant guard, but it couldn't be helped. If this was the price she paid for doing what she'd come here for, so be it. It would be annoying and hard on Ben… and therefore on her too… but she'd dealt with much worse for less.

What do you believe their choice will be? Ben asked through their connection.

If it was just up to my father, we would stay and be welcomed, or at least Marion and I would be. But it's not just his decision, and my mother…

When she trailed off, cringing mentally, Ben sent her a mental wave of comfort. Whatever they decide, we will deal with it.

You're right, she conceded readily, a small amount of relief easing her tension a bit.

Nycole glanced at the guards, who were watching them with the same level of attention as they had shown since coming on shift… most of it focused on Ben. Seeing nothing of immediate concern, she turned her gaze to Marion. Her friend, who had been more like a sister or close cousin to her when they were growing up, was looking at she and Ben with a slightly put upon expression. Marion did that a lot when she thought the two of them were leaving her out of a telepathic conversation.

But Nycole had learned to deal with Marion being a little mad at her. Her own connection with Ben was more important to her than Marion had ever been. It seemed like a harsh thought, but it was true. And though Ben grudgingly included Marion in their mental conversation when it was necessary, he didn't like it. Neither did Nycole if she was being honest with herself. What she had with Ben was unique and the only thing she'd ever really had in her life that was hers alone. She didn't like sharing it with anyone else, even Marion.

"How's your shoulder?" she asked the other girl, both to appease Marion's feeling of being excluded and to help pass the time.

Standing in silence a few feet from heavily armed, trained men was starting to get to her.

"It's not too bad as long as I don't move it," Marion replied. "Papa gave me painkillers, so I'm not really feeling it anymore."

"Was it bad?" Nycole continued the conversation. "I've been shot a few times, but never in the shoulder."

Marion was silent for a minute, a considering look on her face. "Not _too_ bad. Not as bad as the time I broke my arm trying to climb that tree behind our tent when I was ten. Do you remember that?"

Nycole made a face and nodded. "How could I forget? The bone was sticking out through your skin. Seeing that was the closest I ever came to fainting. And of course your father was _sure_ that it was somehow my fault."

Nycole gave a humorless laugh after her recitation and could practically feel Ben frowning. Marion glanced at Ben and then back to Nycole before quietly speaking.

"He never understood you. Or the fact that no matter how close you and I were, I never wanted to be like you."

"Everyone has their faults," Ben drawled.

Marion rolled her eyes at him, and Nycole fought to hide a smirk. Both of them knew he meant it as a put down of Marion's desire not to be like the one he was bonded to rather than a diplomatic excuse for Carson's treatment of Nycole. Ben was not the forgiving sort, even more so when it came to a perceived slight against Nycole.

The bond was a much more profound connection among the Wraith than Nycole's explanation of it had made it seem, and to Ben a slight on Nycole was a slight on him. The only reason Marion was still alive after the treatment she'd skimmed over in her little speech in the meeting was because Ben had known Nycole would have been upset at her loss. For her, he tolerated the younger human female.

All three turned their heads when Rodney, Ronon and Teyla left the conference room. Rodney was looking at something on his swivel-screen laptop, and Ronon and Teyla were talking quietly to each other. A few seconds later John stood in the doorway and beckoned them back into the room.

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Evan Lorne watched as Colonel Sheppard's team left the conference room to get back to their other duties. Because they had no direct connection with the three waiting in the hall, they were somewhat understandably less interested in what would be said in response to Elizabeth Weir's decision. Knowing the decision was apparently enough for them. Despite her saying to Nycole and her companions that the situation would be discussed, Elizabeth had simply laid out her plan for seeing if they were trustworthy and asked if anyone disagreed. No one had, though Sheppard hadn't looked entirely happy.

When Sheppard came back into the room fully, the three of them… and the team of Marines… followed. Evan smiled slightly when he saw that Nycole was treating the wheeled chair she'd left the room with as a wheelchair for Marion. The injured girl looked slightly embarrassed by her impromptu ride.

When the small group was once more seated, Elizabeth explained, "We're going to do this as a trial run in stages. For the first week, there will be three guards on each of you at all times. You will be given rooms, but if you step out of line in any way, the guard will increase and if there's a second offense, you'll be housed in the cell again. If there are no problems, we'll reduce it to two guards each for the second and third weeks and see how things go from there. Of course part of trusting you will hinge on seeing the files you talked about, mainly the ones pertaining to the failed experiment that depleted the ZPM, the Genii takeover and the device that led to the death of Dr. McKay."

"Alright." Nycole responded. "I have the first two prepared, but it will take me a few hours to separate out the file about the device. I'll need access to my ship first, of course. As for the rooms, I can't speak for Marion, but Ben and I would like the one we had in our time. According to the records, it wasn't… _isn't_ being used right now."

"You share a room?" Sheppard's eyes bugged slightly.

Nycole arched a single eyebrow in his direction. "I'm sorry if that's going to be a problem for you, but it's kind of important to the bond. It's the best and safest way for us to live."

"I guess you know what's best," Sheppard allowed, his tone a bit begrudging.

Not that Evan really blamed him. This whole bond thing was going to take a lot of getting used to. Despite Elizabeth's assertion that they would see how things went, Evan didn't truly think there would ever come a time that there wouldn't be at least one armed guard following Ben's every move. They'd had too many bad experiences with Wraith that asked for their trust… and with the ones the Atlantis medical scientists had tried to force to be something they weren't. And if the Wraith and Nycole were truly in constant company with each other, it would mean the guard would be on her as well.

Evan watched Nycole as arrangements were made for Sheppard to take her to the jumper and to deliver the prepared files before the room was checked for habitability. The fact that they would all have to submit to full physicals was also brought up. When Nycole left with Sheppard… Ben and the guards in tow as well… part of him wished he was on duty and could go with them. He stood when Carson and Elizabeth moved to a corner of the room for a private conversation before Carson took Marion back to the infirmary. Evan's gaze, though unfocused, remained on the doorway the others had left through.

"You shouldn't look at her like that."

Evan glanced down at Marion. Though her voice had been soft, it had also held a definite warning tone.

"I'm not sure what you mean," he replied after long, silent moments.

"Nycole," Marion clarified. "She isn't Dr. Weir. In fact, she's hardly like Weir at all from what I remember. And she will never see you as a man."

Evan's eyebrows rose. Both at the inference that he might be interested in Nycole because of her connection to Weir and, more importantly, because his interest in Nycole wasn't what Marion was implying. Not that he didn't find Nycole beautiful, he just hadn't felt that kind of connection to the young woman. The disconcerting notion he'd had that she'd known him the first time he'd seen her had been too strange. And now that he knew something of what he'd been to her in her young life, the mere suggestion was off-putting. But he didn't correct Marion, interested in hearing more and not knowing if she'd tell him if she knew her supposition was wrong.

Marion shifted her weight in the chair she was still seated in before explaining. "What I mean is that when Nycole looks at you, she sees the Evan Lorne she grew up under the care of. You… _he_ was Nycole's father for longer than Colonel Sheppard. She _loved him_ as a father. It hurts her to know that you're not him, that you don't have the memories she does, but even knowing it will not change how she feels when she sees you."

"Did I… was he a good father to her?" Evan couldn't help asking.

Once he'd gotten involved in the SGC, he'd given up on the idea of having a family of his own, knowing he'd never feel right keeping the secret life from a spouse and children. It was strange to know that some version of him had raised someone else's child _because_ of his involvement in the Stargate program.

Marion nodded. "Very. He loved her very much and made sure she had the knowledge and practice to deal with life in the Pegasus Galaxy. It's because of him that she is who she is and that she bothered coming back to change things."

Evan looked slightly stunned by Marion's assertion, "But she's interacting so openly with Sheppard, I would have thought it was her parents she came back for."

"She's trying to get close to him because he's allowing her to," Marion responded. "I'm sure you've noticed the same cannot be said for Dr. Weir. Nyc told me a long time ago that when she came across the jumper, her first thought was to save you on the day you were killed, but that she realized it was too dangerous since her younger self had been there that day. It was only after thinking it out that she realized the best way to save you and _keep_ you safe was to save all of Atlantis. Her parents were an added bonus, but they weren't her first concern; they died when she was so young."

"Wow," Evan breathed, unable to think of anything else to say to what she'd revealed to him.

Knowing all if it made him a bit more confused about why Nycole would avoid him. Until he considered that if he had been that close to someone and they didn't remember him, it would be beyond painful. But how could he get to know her, try to be some part of what the other him had been to her, if she didn't interact with him at all? He wasn't sure why it felt so important that he try, but it did. If she let him, he would be a friend to her.

_**To be continued…**_


	5. Chapter 5

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note**: This one took awhile… holidays, sickness and major writer's block. Sorry, and enjoy. Also… has anyone else not received their emails from FFN for about the past week? I'm starting to worry.

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The first thing John did when he left the room with Ben, Nycole and their four-man guard in tow was to beckon two more armed men over and assign them temporarily to the fifth and sixth slots on guard duty for the pair. He would have to make up revised duty rosters as soon as possible, but he wasn't going to risk Elizabeth's ire by going against her decisions. Especially so soon. John was less concerned about Marion's guards at the moment since rotating shifts had long since been assigned in the infirmary and that was where the young woman would be for at least a couple days.

And honestly, the only real reason the guard was so heavy that he could see was the fact that one of the time travelers was a Wraith. Even Ronon, as skilled as he was at fighting… good enough to be at least on an even keel with a drugged-up Ford, had only had a two-man guard detail when he'd first come to the city.

The walk to the jumper bay from the conference room was a relatively short one, and it passed mostly in silence. It wasn't that John couldn't think of anything he wanted to say to or ask his daughter, more like he couldn't narrow it down enough at the moment to decide what to say first. There were so many details to Nycole's story that he would like for her to elaborate about, but he didn't want her to think he was more focused on her past than on the fact that she was here now.

He also didn't want her to think he was judging her for the choices she'd had to make in her life. God knew he'd had to do some things in his own past that he might not be too proud of, and until a couple of years ago his life had been relatively normal and certainly a lot more mundane than hers had been.

"What do you think you're doing?" Nycole demanded, her pace quickening as they drew even with the jumper.

John frowned, understanding dawning when he saw Rodney standing in the back of the Nycole's ship with his tablet hooked into one of the ship's system control panels. The most scientifically minded member of his team had told John that he was going to be looking into Nycole's assertions about his energy-collecting universal bridge theory. How had he ended up in the jumper bay instead? Had he simply gotten distracted by the challenge of breaking Nycole's locks on the ship or had he outright lied to John?

He followed Nycole onto the jumper's rear ramp, uncomfortably aware that Ben had followed them. No matter how much he believed Nycole and already trusted her for the most part, John knew his guard would never fully drop around her Wraith companion. The first time he was alone with Nycole, he fully intended to ask her about ways to break the bond.

"Overriding your controls," Rodney answered Nycole's question, only half paying attention to them.

The young woman snorted indelicately. "Sure you are."

Rodney looked over at her with a glare. "Even if I have to reset the entire machine, I_will_ do it."

Nycole gave him the dirtiest look John had ever seen one person give another. Rodney actually flinched.

"I guess I'll have to make sure to minimize the damage you're able to do, then," she said in a cold voice.

Nycole moved further into the ship and Rodney backed up hastily a few steps. Nycole ignored him, walking up to the extraneous machine that stood in the middle of the back section of the jumper, opening a drawer that contained several crystals in metal slots. She pulled a slender, purple crystal from one of the slots… the only one of its color… and dropped it on the floor. A second later her heel had come down on it hard, the crystal shattering into innumerable small pieces from the force of being crushed against the grated floor of the jumper. Rodney gaped down at it, doing a rather unattractive impression of a fish out of water.

"What… why did you do that?" the scientist demanded.

Nycole frowned at him severely. "If I can't even get you to respect my ownership of this ship, I doubt I'd be able to talk you out of making a stupid move with it. And I know the NID and IOA wouldn't have listened to me. No one should have that kind of power."

"You did!" Rodney yelped indignantly.

A humorless laugh escaped her. "And look what it got me. A prisoner in the city I meant to save, having to destroy the only means of going home so nothing bad would happen and having to be constantly on guard in case someone tries to kill me and mine."

"We're not going to kill you," John spoke up.

She turned to him with a sad half-smile. "Can you really guarantee that not even a single one of the people assigned to guard us is ever going to get jumpy? Or even just the people in the hallways?"

He wanted to be able to reassure her, but he knew if he was going to be honest with her, he couldn't. Many of the military members… and civilians… of the Atlantis expedition had lost team members and friends to the Wraith, and even those who hadn't suffered a direct loss very likely had a healthy fear of the alien race. He liked to think that training and orders would stop any of the military personnel from making a hasty mistake… with fear of losing their jobs incentive for the civilians… but he knew he couldn't promise her anything.

"I can't," he admitted. "But know that it will never be an order from me."

Nycole's eyes softened. "Thanks, Dad."

"McKay," he raised his voice slightly, causing the blatantly eavesdropping scientist to jump. "Leave her ship alone."

"But…"

"That's an order," John said firmly.

He fully expected Rodney to point out that as a member of the scientific, civilian part of the expedition he didn't really have to follow John's orders unless they were in the middle of a military situation. Surprisingly, the man simply unplugged his laptop and exited first the jumper and then the bay, muttering under his breath the whole time. John knew he hadn't heard the last of this, but at least they'd gotten a momentary reprieve.

"He reminds me of our head scientist. Forever poking, especially when he probably should not be."

John blinked at the sudden quip from Ben, but Nycole allowed a humorous grin in response before turning to the reason they'd come to the jumper bay in the first place. She went to a storage section in the wall, pressing a series of keys too quickly for John to remember the sequence and pulled out three duffle-like bags. She turned back and set them on the floor in front of John.

"You can go through these while I get the files for Mother," she said as she straightened before closing the cabinet. "They're just clothes and other essentials, one bag each for myself, Ben and Marion. I know you'll want to check them for weapons." She turned once more toward the front of the jumper before hesitating and turning back to him. "I'd also like my effects back, if it's not too much trouble."

"I'll get them for you when we're done," John answered, "but I think we'll have to hold back on returning the shield."

"I understand… just, if you're going to deplete it, please do it for something important and not because McKay wants to feel invincible again."

John's eyebrows rose and he smiled in fond remembrance of being able to shoot Rodney and toss him off a balcony with the knowledge that no permanent damage would be done. He squatted, zipping open the first bag to check through.

"Did you read about that in the reports?"

Nycole had sat down at the front console, two laptops set in front of her that she must have pulled from another compartment, so he heard rather than saw her smile.

"Yes, but I already knew about it. Uncle Zelly… that's what Marion, myself and some of the other children called Zelenka… used to tell us stories of McKay's misdeeds. You always said it was payback after all the time McKay spent heckling him."

"And McKay wasn't around anymore to defend himself."

"Nope."

The click of laptop keys filled the sudden silence and John went back to his task. He felt somewhat odd going through other peoples' clothing and what were probably most of their worldly possessions. But he knew if he didn't do a thorough job, Elizabeth would be even more… well, angry wasn't quite the right word, but whatever it was that had come up to form the wall now standing between them, there was no way he was going to consciously add to it.

It took more than ten minutes for him to sort through the three bags, finding not even so much as a razor. There were a few sewing needles and a pair of scissors in what he thought was probably Marion's bag due mostly to the fact that earth tone dresses had been the main contents of the bag. The pants and shirts in the other female-oriented bag had definitely been much more Nycole's style from what he knew so far. He didn't, however, see the harm in leaving them in the bag. If his men could be taken down by a pair of scissors, they deserved to be. He zipped the final bag closed again, Ben's from the contents, and stood.

"You traveled back in time without a single weapon?" he asked, Nycole's head turning to look back at him. "What if something had gone wrong and you'd ended up somewhere else?"

"I never said we didn't have weapons," she answered quickly. "I just didn't think it would be a good idea to take them out yet. They are as safe locked in here as they would be in the armory, with the added bonus of us not losing our possessions to someone who didn't know better."

"Would you mind showing them to me?" John requested.

Nycole stood and moved to the back portion of the ship, kneeling beside the seats on the right side. Lifting the seating surface, another storage area was revealed beneath. The tattooed young woman pressed another series of numbers, this time also putting her hand down on an opaque surface that scanned her palm. With an audible click the compartment opened, and Nycole stood back. She gestured for John to look into the opened space.

Inside was a wide range of weapons, most of which he recognized. Various Wraith stunners, the full size and handheld versions as well as ones he'd not seen before, were the most common components of the arsenal. There were also projectile guns that must have been from human settlements, among them a Genii handgun, as well as what looked like stun and explosive grenades. There was also more primitive weaponry like knives, a bow and quiver of arrows, a short-handled spear and even a couple swords. There were also a few Earth guns. Every piece was in pristine condition and had it's own secure location in the storage locker. John let out a low whistle.

"That's quite an arsenal for three people," he remarked.

"Two," Nycole corrected. "Marion's not a warrior. Carson wouldn't even let Evan teach her anything beyond basic self-defense when we were growing up. After we plucked her out of the time stream I tried to get her to target practice a few times with a stunner, but…" she shrugged as she trailed off.

"Your mother's not into weapons either," John said. "Some people just aren't."

Nycole smiled slightly. "True. She's a diplomat through and through. But I grew up in a different life, and though it was hard, I like who I became."

John smiled back at her, wanting to say he liked who she became as well, but he knew that he hadn't gotten to know her enough yet for it to be anything more than a platitude.

She closed the weapons locker and went once more into the front section of the jumper. John followed, glancing at the screens over her shoulder. A couple of files were being transferred from one to the other via a USB cable connecting them.

"I'm going to give Mother the data files describing various devices found in the city and what was learned about them before I hunt down the file about McKay's death," Nycole informed him. "It should give McKay and some of the others plenty to do in the time that would have been used on the universal bridge project."

John made a sound of assent. Nycole turned slightly in the chair to look up at him.

Her voice was hesitant and soft as she asked, "Do you think the information I've brought will stop the project from going through?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "I'm sure McKay will try to find a way around the mistake. Whether he'll be successful or not is anyone's guess, especially if he really does need outside help. The bigger question is whether or not Elizabeth will give the go ahead to experiment. Unless he can show her that he's found a way around the problem I don't think she will."

Nycole nodded slowly. A few moments later, a beep alerted her that her file transfer was complete. She shut down the two computers and handed John one of them before going to another storage compartment, this one where the seat behind the pilot's would have been. From inside it she retrieved a third laptop along with a bag that she slid the two she had kept in her possession into. Nycole placed the bag over her shoulder and led the way back out of the jumper, checking that each compartment she'd opened was securely closed as she went.

When the three of them had stepped out, the ramp raised, closing the jumper. Ben passed one of the duffel bags to Nycole, who slung it over the opposite shoulder from the laptop bag. Ben carried the other two, one in each hand. John stared for a minute at the fingerless glove on Ben's right hand before he noticed that Nycole had moved toward one of the walls where a map of Atlantis hung. As he reached her side, she pointed to one of the smaller towers that connected to the main one they were in.

"This is where our room is," she said, indicating one of the pointed ends of the elliptically shaped eastern tower. "It's the top level of that tower but four floors below this one. There aren't any transporters that go into that tower so it'll be a little bit of a walk."

"That's fine," he responded.

He was fairly sure part of the reason she wanted that room was to be away from the rest of the expedition. Whether it was because of how they would judge her for her choice of companions or because of too many memories of the way things would have been… he wasn't as sure about the underlying reason. No matter what it was, it was probably a good idea. To start with at the very least. They started walking, and John ran back over the conversations they'd had in his head, looking for something light to talk about as they went.

"About what you said earlier… I thought Zelenka didn't like kids. I'm surprised he let you guys give him a nickname."

Nycole laughed briefly; hers was only slightly deeper than Elizabeth's laugh. It was a sound that made John smile even before Nycole answered his observation.

"He hated it," she acknowledged. "And us to an extent. But Merry was the one who gave him the name, so eventually he gave up trying to talk us out of using it… and the only reason he ever told us stories was to bribe us into leaving him alone. We all knew how to swear in Czech before we knew what a swear word was."

"Merry?" John echoed, slightly confused. "Was that a nickname of Marion's?"

Nycole paled slightly and swallowed visibly. "No. I… I shouldn't have mentioned him. It would only hurt people to know about the children that were killed by the Genii. And it might influence relationships to start or end before they should."

John heaved a sigh; there went the hope of light conversation. "You're probably right."

They were silent the rest of the walk. The door Nycole indicated as the one to the room she wanted as hers opened long before John even thought about reaching for the panel of crystals beside it.

"Did you do that or did I?" he asked.

He'd gotten used to opening doors the same way as everyone else, but he fondly remembered the way the city responded more readily to him than anyone else. Even among the others who possessed the Ancient gene naturally. McKay used to call him a showoff all the time when doors he was headed for opened before he reached them. It was a big contributor to him doing it the "hard" way. And maybe it shouldn't be.

"I did," Nycole answered easily.

"Does it come even easier for you than it does for me?"

Nycole shook her head, "Not really. But you've only been here a few years and didn't start using the gene actively until you got here. I've been doing it since I was little more than an infant; you used to say you were afraid I was going to give you a heart attack when I was first crawling. Someone always had to be watching me if I wasn't restrained some way or other or, between the doors and the teleporters, I could end up at the other end of the city."

John nodded, allowing Ben to follow Nycole into the room before he did. As he walked into the room and took in the layout, his jaw dropped. Although the room should have come to a point since it was the last room at one end of the tower and the tower was a pointy-ended oval shape, there was a flat wall opposite them. Straight across from the door stood a bed. It was smaller than an Earth queen size, but bigger then the beds in the rooms the members of the expedition used. But that wasn't what immediately drew the eye.

The wall was normal about halfway from the floor to the ceiling behind the bed, but above that it was all window, as were most of the other walls in the room. The one on the right was a curved shape that matched the outer edge of the building and consisted of clear glass panels as well as ones that matched the Ancients' attempts at stained glass found throughout Atlantis. Outside John could see a balcony much like the one he and Elizabeth had claimed as their own in an unspoken agreement that so far everyone in Atlantis had honored.

On the left, the half of the wall near the bed was also glass. He assumed the rest of the wall was as well, but that section was walled off by a smaller room. John was willing to bet it was the bathroom. The final wall, the one the door was set into, was the same color as all the rooms in Atlantis, a low dresser taking up much of the floor space at its base. The ceiling was mostly a solid color except for the section over the bed, which was a perfectly clear skylight. Like the undamaged sections of the city had been when the expedition first arrived, the room was oddly clean, with only the smallest traces of dust.

"Wow," John finally managed to say.

Nycole grinned. "I think you can see now why I never minded the hike to the central tower."

"No kidding," he replied. He stepped toward the glass wall on the right to check out the view. "Do these…"

Before he could even finish his question, Nycole was walking toward the wall as well. When she was within a few feet of it, the panels gave a quiet groan before pivoting on a central axis. John followed Nycole out onto the balcony. There was a different perspective than he and Elizabeth's balcony provided, but it was breathtaking nonetheless. Nycole beckoned him to follow her, leading him to the place where the room would have come to a point if it hadn't been for the wall that acted as a headboard for the bed. There was an overhang from the roof of the tower, and against the outer wall a long seat had been built in.

"This room and the others on this floor of the tower were intended for important visiting dignitaries," Nycole said as the two of the stood at the balcony railing, staring off into the blue of sky and water. "This is actually the smallest of the rooms, but I like the view best."

"It is beautiful. I'd ask if it ever gets too hot in the room with all those windows, but it's been noted that the glass in Atlantis is treated with something that stops the solar heat from building up."

Nycole nodded. "And when it just feels too sunny, all you have to do is open the paneling on either side of the room and get a nice cross breeze going."

John straightened. He wished he could spend more time with her, but he was on duty and had a lot to do. Though the day had only started a few hours ago, he was already behind.

"I have to get back to work."

A small smile touched Nycole's lips. "I know. Besides, watching us unpack and clean wouldn't be much fun. And later we have to schedule my physical with Carson."

"Physicals," he automatically corrected; Nycole frowned slightly but didn't naysay him. "Do you need anything to clean with, or necessities you may not have packed?"

Nycole shook her head, "There's a supply and laundry room just down the hall. We'll be fine."

Trying to ignore how often she said "we" instead of "me" or "I" and how close she must be to Ben to do it as often as she did, John walked with her back into the room and then out of it without her. He noted Ben watching him silently as he passed through, the Wraith already putting away his clothes in the drawers on the right side of the dresser. He didn't think he'd ever get used to that.

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It was late afternoon by the time Nycole and Ben had finished cleaning their room and putting away their belongings. They stopped in the infirmary, and Carson agreed to take care of Nycole's physical before he ended his shift for the day. He'd already done what little had needed doing for Marion's check up that hadn't been covered by pre- and post-surgery. The younger woman was asleep.

The physical was completed efficiently, Nycole having to first assure Carson that she had no problem with him being her physician. He had hedged about it at first because he now knew she had grown up living in close proximity with his future self. Nycole had pointed out that he'd been her doctor then and she saw no point in changing that now. When he was done with Nycole, Carson had warily turned his attention towards Ben. The Wraith glared at the human physician, and Carson shrank back slightly.

"You can do a cursory examination to appease my mother," Nycole told him firmly, "but we both know there is no point in a full physical. He can't carry diseases, and he doesn't get sick."

Carson nodded acknowledgement but added, "I'll have to take a sample of his blood to keep on file."

Nycole frowned but replied, "All right. But no trying to inject him with the retrovirus or anything like that. If it does ever come down to that, you'd be better off getting my father to put a bullet in my head to kill us both in one move. The stars only know what would happen to me if you screwed with Ben's biology."

The Scottish doctor gaped at her for a full minute, probably stunned at her insisting on death in such a calm tone of voice.

"I'll make sure that your wishes are known," he finally said quietly.

Nycole nodded, turning away from him. Ben motioned with his head to the other side of the room. Carson glanced in that direction as well. Marion was awake and sitting up, watching them with a guarded expression.

"Let me know when you're done," Nycole remarked, walking across the room to her friend's bedside, three armed men following a few steps behind.

Marion smiled softly when Nycole sat down in a chair beside the bed. "Did you get the room you had before we came here?"

"Yes," Nycole answered. "Did you want me to get yours ready or are you going to choose a room closer to the expedition members?"

Marion looked down for a few seconds before she said, "I'm going to have a room in the main tower. There's an empty one a few doors down from Papa. I… I want to be close to him in case he ever decides he wants to get to know me."

A tight smile graced Nycole's face, and they both fell silent. Nycole knew Marion was once again unhappy about her father having been left behind. All Nycole could feel about it was tired. She loved Marion, but sometimes the other girl made her feel annoyed or guilty over things that were mostly beyond her control.

There were times, especially after she'd first rescued the younger girl, that she regretted her decision to do so. Marion wasn't happy, and wouldn't be as long as this time's Carson avoided her. But it was far too late to take her back to her own time, even if Nycole hadn't been forced to disable the jumper. They'd all have to learn to live with that fact.

_**To be continued…**_


	6. Chapter 6

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

Bit of a longer chapter to make up for the wait. :)

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John stood in the doorway to Elizabeth's office, waiting for her to acknowledge him. She was frowning rather hard at her laptop screen, but he didn't think she was actually reading anything. Her eyes hadn't moved in at least the last three minutes. When another minute passed and Elizabeth didn't look up, John cleared his throat.

The leader of the Atlantis expedition jumped slightly, her head snapping up to look at him. "Something I can help you with, Colonel?"

John frowned at her use of his rank and walked several steps into her office. He wanted to call her on her distanced treatment of him, wanted to ask what he had done in _this_ time to make her pull away from the deep friendship and mutual respect he'd thought they had shared, but he couldn't do it in so public a venue as her window-walled office.

Between the guards that had been there for long spans at a time and the nurses in Beckett's employ, he was sure everyone in Atlantis knew by now who Nycole was. They would all be watching he and Elizabeth to see how they handled knowing about their future relationship or, alternately, whether that relationship had already started. For the first time, he truly worried about what this could mean to his position… and Elizabeth's… on the expedition.

Would the SGC look the other way since nothing had happened between them yet, or would Nycole's very existence be enough 'proof' and result in one or both of them being shipped back to Earth? He was not looking forward to Caldwell's reaction when the older man made his next trip to Atlantis on the Daedalus. He'd already implied more than once that there was more between John and Elizabeth than there 'should be.' And from the way he'd seen the other man behave around Elizabeth, John knew it wasn't just his job that Caldwell was after. It was hypocrisy of the worst kind, but it was there all the same.

Noting how Elizabeth sat further back as he approached her desk, John set the laptop Nycole had given him on the far surface. He stepped back a pace even though under normal circumstances he'd be sitting on the corner of her desk next to the pot he'd given her for her birthday the first year they'd been here.

"Most of the files you wanted from Nycole and some extras she thought might be useful are on there. She's still looking up the file about Rodney's death."

Elizabeth nodded acknowledgment but made no move to reach for the computer. "Was there something else, Colonel?"

A short, humorless puff of a laugh escaped John. Elizabeth flinched slightly and averted her eyes.

"I guess there wasn't," he bit off before heading out of the room and to his own, less frequently used office.

If that was how she needed to deal with what was going on, he would give her space. For now. But there was no way he was giving up what they had… what they could have… without a fight.

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When John left her office in an obviously angry mood, Elizabeth was sorry she had hurt him. But whatever reason was making it so easy for him to accept their time-traveling offspring, she hadn't been given the same insight. She didn't know why, but she just couldn't accept Nycole without further proof. Even though part of her wanted to be able to be happy about this as John obviously was, she found herself constantly coming up with new ways Nycole and her travel companions could have come to be without it being as simple as Nycole had said.

There was always the chance that the young woman was genetically their child but not naturally, or maybe she wasn't theirs at all and her blood had been altered to pass genetic testing. Considering that they lived in another galaxy in a city built by an ancient advanced race and were fighting life-sucking aliens (and occasionally humanoids made of billions of tiny machines), there were a lot of options to choose from, and Elizabeth was sure there were many more that she could not even begin to imagine.

Elizabeth had yet to touch the laptop John had left on her desk, frankly afraid of what she might learn. Was it her own belief that the Genii were no longer that much of a threat that had led to the capture of Atlantis by that group? She was also worried about learning of the deaths of the people who had come to be a second family over the past couple years. Would the information Nycole gave them help prevent any unnecessary deaths or would it force Elizabeth to live with the knowledge of coming tragedies with nothing to do but wait for them to happen?

There was also Nycole herself. Elizabeth's interaction with her had been significantly shorter than John's, but she had been around her enough to notice things. Like the fact that while Nycole called John 'Dad,' Elizabeth was 'Mother.' If Nycole was who she claimed to be… and if she wasn't, why the difference in forms of address at all… had her future self not been close to her daughter? The young woman definitely had traits that Elizabeth recognized as John's… strong-willed, intelligent, and fiercely loyal to and protective of those she considered hers. While Elizabeth recognized those traits could be applied to her as well, it seemed more likely from what she had thus far observed that they came from John.

And what about John? He'd been jealous when he had assumed Nycole was Ronon's child and happy when the 'truth' had come out. Did that mean he had thought about a future between them before? Elizabeth cared very deeply for John, probably more than she should, more than she had allowed herself to acknowledge before this had all happened. He was her best friend. She trusted him more than she had any other, and she knew that went both ways. They depended on each other's strengths and balanced out each other's weaknesses on a daily basis. There was no one she would rather have by her side, going through all the crazy things they encountered.

The knowledge that they'd had something in what would have been the future scared her. To some extent because part of her wanted it so badly, but mostly because she couldn't lose him… and she was afraid that was exactly what would happen if something were to ever happen between them. The frat regs that plagued the military contingent may not be applicable to them, but the SGC and IOA were sure to find something, anything, to get rid of one or both of them if they were openly together.

He was also the one she went to when she needed someone to talk to about what was bothering her. John was an excellent sounding board. Even if he didn't have an answer to whatever was on her mind, his very presence helped her look at things from a new perspective and often helped her find a solution she never would have come up with on her own. And that was what was making her ability to deal with this practically nonexistent. She couldn't go to him about it, because a big part of it _was_ him.

Ignoring the elephant in the room that was being disguised as a simple laptop, Elizabeth turned back to the report she had been trying to review when John had shown up. She was too emotional at the moment to try to deal with the current unexpected situation, and she was already behind on what should have gotten done today.

Hours later when she'd made some headway on her duties and had also managed to get a lot more worry in, Elizabeth glanced up at a knock on the room's doorframe to find Nycole standing there. Behind her were Ben and their six-man guard. Elizabeth forced a tight smile onto her face and beckoned the young woman forward.

"Colonel Sheppard mentioned that you were still looking for the file about Rodney," she said as Nycole walked toward her, a slight frown appearing on the younger woman's face at the use of John's rank and surname. "Did you find it?"

Nycole nodded and set a memory stick on top of the laptop John had left behind. "Yes. Have you had a chance to look at the other files?"

"Not yet," Elizabeth admitted grudgingly. "Your arrival threw things off a bit around here, so I've been trying to catch up."

Nycole set her jaw but nodded again. "I'll try to be less of a bother."

Before Elizabeth could think of a response to that, Nycole was gone, her entourage dogging her steps. Elizabeth sighed and leaned forward to rest her head in her hands for a moment. She had managed to make both John and Nycole mad at her in a matter of hours. Some diplomat she was.

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John was surprised when he answered a knock on his door that night to find Elizabeth on the other side. He hadn't expected her to purposefully seek him out anytime soon. John knew whatever she was here for had to be personal. If she had something to tell him that was work related, she would have just told him over the radio, on a private channel if necessary, or called him to her office.

Even though she had taken a step by seeking him out, he couldn't help showing her that how she'd treated him had hurt. "Something I can help you with, Dr. Weir?"

Her head bowed slightly before she lifted it to meet his gaze. The pain and confusion he saw in her eyes lessened his anger, and her words went further in soothing the rift between them. It wouldn't be completely healed without a return to how things should be, though.

"I deserve that." Elizabeth sighed softly before continuing, "I'm sorry I was acting distant earlier. I just… I need time."

"We have time," John replied softly, knowing somehow that he would have to meet her more than half way if this was all going to work out.

Elizabeth must have seen some part of what he hoped would come in time in his gaze because her cheeks took on the slightest tinge of pink. He couldn't help grinning at the sight. After a few heavily charged moments, Elizabeth cleared her throat.

"That wasn't the only thing I needed to talk to you about."

John leaned on the doorframe, knowing better than to ask her to come in so they could talk in private. He was sure she'd be jumpy about being alone with him in an enclosed place for some time to come.

"What's up?"

Taking a deep breath, Elizabeth told him, "This… _situation_ is rather unique, and even without the Wraith's presence it would probably be hard for some people to deal with. I'm going to schedule visits with Dr. Heightmeyer for everyone directly involved, myself included, and encourage anyone who needs to talk about the situation to seek her out. I wanted to tell you before I made the announcement so you wouldn't think…"

She trailed off, and John took pity on her. "It's a good idea, 'Lizabeth. It couldn't hurt to help everyone adjust, and it'll be a point in our favor when the SGC and IOA find out about Nycole, Marion and Ben."

Elizabeth nodded silently. A few tense moments passed before she softly said good night and moved away from his door. John watched her disappear around a corner before slipping back into his quarters for the night.

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Nycole was in Marion's new room putting away the other girl's clothes and essentials when Elizabeth's announcement was made over the citywide PA. It was two days since she had last seen her mother; later in the evening it would be four full days since she, Marion and Ben had arrived. Though she'd gotten over her initial anger quickly, Nycole had kept her word and stayed out of Elizabeth's way. She had, however, seen her father more than once each day. Though he and Evan had been taken out of the guard rotation to prevent potential future claims of conflict of interest from the SGC or IOA, John had made a point of spending at least a little time with her each day in order to get to know her better.

Evan, on the other hand, Nycole had avoided like the plague. It was why she was in Marion's room, in fact. Nycole and Ben had been going to eat a late lunch… they still avoided the high traffic times in the mess for the sake of causing less of a stir… when Nycole had seen Evan sitting at a table. He'd been talking with Zelenka but had evidently felt her stare, because he'd looked up and after a second he'd smiled at her. When she realized she'd taken an unconscious step in his direction, Nycole had immediately spun on her heel and fled the mess, Ben and their guards right behind her.

She'd ended up in Marion's room and made herself busy when she saw that her friend's duffel hadn't been unpacked. Marion had been released from the infirmary the day before but was still suffering restricted mobility from her injury. She was also in a permanent bad mood because Carson had been too busy the past few days to spend any time with her beyond a few minutes here and there for medical reasons. Even if he wanted to get to know his daughter, Carson simply hadn't had the time yet.

Marion was getting on Nycole's last nerve with her pouting, but there hadn't been any other place to go besides all the way back to she and Ben's room. Nycole hadn't wanted to make their guards hike all that way and back unnecessarily.

Nycole snorted when Elizabeth's message was over. Marion looked at her questioningly.

"Not only are we a potential physical threat that requires a nine-man guard when we're all in the same place, we're a menace to the mental health of an entire city," Nycole commented dryly.

Marion smiled weakly, and Nycole turned back to her task with an internal sigh.

Even if there were four men assigned to watch each of us, you and I could still defeat them, Ben pointed out telepathically.

Easily, Nycole agreed. But if Marion fully realized that, she would stop acting uncertain, and they would be suspicious. We knew coming in to expect things to go like they have or worse, but if we act accepting of how things are, it will be more detrimental for us later.

When the authorities from Earth hear about us, he finished the thought.

Making sure that Marion wasn't looking her way, Nycole nodded.

Later that day when John visited with her, he told Nycole the full version of Elizabeth's plan and informed her that she and Ben's first meeting with Dr. Heightmeyer was scheduled for the next day. Elizabeth had waited to make the announcement from the time she'd told John about it in order to give the psychiatrist time to review some of the files Nycole had given them as well as the available security footage of Ben and Nycole's first day in Atlantis.

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Kate Heightmeyer clasped her hands in front of her when the door chime to the room she used for sessions went off. She cleared her throat before calling, "Enter."

A young woman and a Wraith male came in the door, and Kate got her first in person view of two of the three time-travelers currently in Atlantis. They came across just as physically imposing in person as they did on the security footage she'd been given to review before their first session. Nycole Sheppard was in no way built in anything other than a feminine form, but her physical strength was obvious in the way she moved and held herself. Kate pasted a smile on her face and gestured toward the short couch across from the seat she usually claimed as her own.

"Have a seat," she urged before turning to the guards standing in the doorway. "Gentlemen, if you'd go to the far end of the room."

That brought Nycole up short. "We're not doing this if they're going to be in here."

"I'm sure you understand that you're supposed to stay under guard at all times while Dr. Weir's trial period is ongoing," Kate tried to soothe.

Instead of answering, Nycole turned toward the Wraith she called Ben. Almost as one, the two of them moved to stand at either end of the couch before picking it up and moving it back, leaving a good fifteen feet between the couch and her chair. Nycole then turned toward one of the guards.

"Give her a stunner."

Nycole and Ben both sat down after she had issued the command. The nearest soldier gave Kate a stunner. With a slight disbelieving shake of her head, Kate motioned that the guards could wait outside the office. When the door had closed, she cautiously made her way to her seat and lowered herself, keeping the small Wraith hand weapon on her lap.

Kate stared at her unusual 'patients' for almost a full minute before asking, "Would you prefer to do this separately?"

"There is very little we do not know about each other," Ben responded with a slight sneer.

"Besides," Nycole added, "if I wasn't here, wouldn't you feel uncomfortable without any guards in the room, even with the stunner?" Kate opened her mouth but the younger woman continued, "Of course you would. And if Ben has to talk to you, he'd much rather it be in front of me than them."

"Alright," Kate relented. She paused a moment to go into professional mode. "One of the main things Dr. Weir wants to come of these sessions, beyond helping the two of you settle into life here, is for someone to have an understanding of the bond between you."

The two exchanged a look and Kate paused to find the reason.

"Is there a concern or question you have about what I just said that you'd like me to address?"

Nycole sighed softly. "No one can ever really understand the bond without being a part of it. The only people who might even have the slightest inkling of what it's like would be McKay and Laura Cadman when they were sharing McKay's body. And I imagine even that was completely different, especially since they fought each other the whole time."

Kate shifted slightly, crossing her legs. "Why don't you try to explain it to me?"

Surprisingly, it was Ben who spoke next, "Not all Wraith have the skill to invade minds, but all can speak telepathically. It is common courtesy to stay out of the mind of another on a deeper than surface communication level unless invited. But when the bonding occurs, connection is instantaneous and constant. We can block our deepest thoughts from each other with practice, but it takes an exceptionally strong mind to even be able to learn to do so. And the bond does not end with telepathy. If one of us is hurt, the other feels it. We draw strength from each other and weaken when we are apart. If I were away from her for more than a few days, I would need to feed but it would not be enough to keep me alive for long."

"How does that work?" Kate asked. "The not feeding when you're together, I mean."

Another moment of silent communication between the two sitting opposite her passed before Ben said, "In a way, I do feed." Kate stiffened, but he ignored her and continued. "It is not only our minds and… I believe your people call them souls… that change with the bond, biological changes occur as well. As Nycole told your people, she can now self heal to an extent. My own biology changed so that my life span matches hers. Part of that is truly using nutrients from the consumption of organic material. But I am still Wraith and still require life energy to sustain myself. I get it through physical contact with Nycole."

Kate's head snapped to the right to look at the young woman. She had been given an overview of what had been revealed about Nycole and Ben's past, but she hadn't truly absorbed what their dependence on each other entailed.

"It's why we share a room," Nycole said calmly. "He has to have a certain amount of physical contact with me everyday. We discovered through trial and error when the bond was first initiated that the best way for him to get what he needs without weakening me by taking it all at once is to take small amounts slowly throughout the night."

"And he can accomplish this in his sleep?"

Nycole nodded. Kate sank back a little, a thoughtful look on her face.

"You don't have to answer this, of course," she said after a minute. "But are the two of you intimate?"

"Were you not listening to my description of what the bond requires?" Ben asked.

"I'm sorry," Kate responded. "I realize the bond is a very personal and complex thing. What I was asking is if the two of you have been _physically_ intimate."

Ben snarled and Nycole's eyes went oddly blank, but she answered calmly, "No."

Kate could see no sign of body language or anything else to indicate Nycole was lying, but something felt off. "If you were, would you feel compelled to hide it because of what others would think?"

The young woman's dark eyebrows drew together in a frown that reminded Kate of Elizabeth.

"It would be a private thing that I don't think anyone else would have the right to know… most decent people I've known in my life wouldn't exactly go around talking freely about who they've been sexually active with… but no, I wouldn't hide it. The bond is already more personal than… well, I don't see how it would make that much difference to how other people saw us."

"Ben, would you mind if I spoke to Nycole alone for a moment?"

That earned her a fierce scowl that had her sinking back instinctively, but the Wraith male did get up and head out the door. When it had closed, Kate straightened and looked at Nycole again.

"You seemed to be holding something back when I asked if you had been intimate with Ben," she observed. "What were you going to say when you started commenting that the bond was already more personal than… whatever it was?"

"He gets angry when people make assumptions about us in that regard. The Wraith are not as promiscuous as most humans," Nycole explained Ben's behavior before moving on to Kate's question. "What I started to say was that the bond is already more personal than most marriages and partnerships I've observed in my life."

"I see," Kate replied. Nycole seemed to have something of a negative view on romantic relationships, and Kate had a theory that there was more to it than simply things Nycole had observed. "You're an attractive young woman, and you must have been at least twenty-four before you met Ben if I have the timeline right. Did you have a sexual involvement with anyone in your life in that time?"

A wry smile curved Nycole's lips. "You could have let him stay, he already knows all of this. I've been physically involved with two men, but neither was an emotional relationship. The first was when I was seventeen and a mentor took advantage of getting me 'prepared' for whatever I might have to deal with, the other was my way of ingratiating myself with my Genii superior so I would be moved to the Genii homeworld."

"Was the mentor Major Lorne?"

Kate's eyes widened as Nycole's expression changed instantaneously from mildly bemused to viciously menacing. "He would _never _do that to any woman, let alone me. Not to mention he'd already been dead for two years then."

"I'm sorry," Kate immediately apologized. "I hope you understand that it was something I had to ask. With the way you've been actively avoiding him, people were starting to wonder what might have happened between the two of you."

Nycole frowned, but her expression this time was sad and thoughtful instead of aggressive. "How… how would you handle seeing someone you loved as a father for most of your life for the first time more than a decade after his death, and at the same time have to deal with him not knowing what he meant to you? What you meant to him? That's what I'm having the most trouble dealing with in all of this. That and Marion's anger over Carson not going out of his way to get to know her. Sometimes she makes me regret going back for her, and I don't like feeling that way."

Kate was saved from trying to find an answer, or at the very least a response, to these very serious issues when the door opened. Both women looked towards it, though Kate noted Nycole's gaze lacked any curiosity. Seeing Ben re-enter the room, Kate understood why. Despite Kate having asked him to leave the room, he hadn't left Nycole, not really. A shiver crept down the psychologist's spine as she got the tiniest glimpse of what they had been trying to tell her.

The idea of someone being so attuned to you was a romantic notion at first thought, but upon deeper reflection it seemed an invasion and occupation of one's very self. It wouldn't take much of that for most people to stop being individuals completely. Kate certainly wasn't sure she would be able to handle something like that. It left her to wonder whether the fact that Nycole _could_ meant that the young woman was incredibly strong mentally or that she just had a more docile personality. A glance at the woman's tattoos and leather pants… and her knowledge that Nycole had been the last surviving inhabitant of Atlantis… led Kate to think it was likely the former. She knew better than to judge based on appearances, but everything she had learned about the female Sheppard so far backed up that judgment.

"You do not _have_ to deal with it," he spoke quietly when he was standing over Nycole, all of his focus on her.

Nycole stared at him for a few minutes, her lips slightly parted. "But… you would be…"

"It will be worth it," he answered her broken phrase firmly. Ben lifted his gaze and turned it on Kate. "Tell Marion and her father to come to our quarters." He glanced momentarily at Nycole, who seemed stunned by whatever was going on. "And Major Lorne as well."

That made Nycole's eyes widen, but Kate didn't get the chance to ask what was going on. The Wraith guided the human he was bonded to up and out of the room. Kate shook her head when she realized they'd left long before the session was supposed to be over. She would have to go with Carson, Marion and Major Lorne to the pair's room to see what this was about.

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When Evan reached the room Nycole and Ben had chosen as theirs, they were there waiting and not alone. Carson, Marion and Kate Heightmeyer… who had been the one to call him on a private channel and tell him to come here… were there as well. They were all silent. Evan got the distinct impression that they had been waiting for him to show up before talking about why they had been summoned. All attention shifted to Nycole and Ben, who were standing at the foot of the large bed in the room. The young woman averted her gaze with a worried expression.

"You have been summoned to receive an offer of a memory exchange," Ben announced after a few more silent moments had passed. "If you agree, Doctor Beckett will receive Marion's memories and Major Lorne will get Nycole's."

Carson's jaw dropped, and Evan barely managed not to react the same way. After the way she'd avoided him, he certainly never would have expected something this personal to be offered. Ben's attention shifted to Kate.

"You have the authority to have them taken off duty for a…" he glanced at Nycole before finishing, "mental health day, do you not?"

Kate blinked in surprise, but nodded.

"Doctor Beckett may not need the whole day tomorrow, but Major Lorne will if he accepts what I am offering."

Evan opened his mouth to say something, but had to wait his turn.

"Why?" Kate asked.

"Marion's memories are less complex than Nycole's. She is also younger and has less to transfer," Ben explained. "Doctor Beckett will not have as much to contend with as Major Lorne. It takes time and rest to adjust to the new memories."

The blonde psychiatrist frowned. "I'm not sure I should allow this without discussing it with Dr. Weir and Colonel Sheppard first."

Nycole turned her gaze back to the group in front of her, saying, "They're not being forced or coerced, and it is _their_ minds that would have new memories. Their minds do not belong to anyone but themselves. With everything that goes on in Atlantis, this is a way for them to get to know us without it taking potentially months."

Kate thought about that for a few minutes before nodding with apparent reluctance. "You're right, it is up to them. Gentlemen?"

Carson glanced at Marion, who was watching him with an openly hopeful expression.

"Alright," he responded. "Nycole is right, it could take longer than any one of us has the patience for to get to know each other the traditional way. And I do want to know my daughter."

Marion's resulting smile was blinding in intensity. Kate's gaze shifted to Evan.

"I accept, too," he said simply.

Evan noted an immediate release in the tension of Nycole's body. She had truly been hoping he would accept, but apparently doubted he would. Since she'd been avoiding him and Evan had never gotten the opportunity to tell her he wanted to try to be her friend, he could see why she had thought that was the case.

The others watched silently as Marion led Carson by the arm so that both of them were standing in front of Ben. Once Carson had stopped fidgeting and relaxed slightly, Ben raised both hands, placing one on Marion's head and the other on Carson's. There was neither auditory nor visual clue to show that anything was happening, but after a few minutes, Ben dropped his touch on both of them. After a few seconds their eyes, which had closed shortly after Ben's laying on of hands, opened and they stared at each other. Marion was biting her lower lip in what Evan guessed was anxiety and hope.

Tears came to Carson's eyes as he lifted a hand to cup the side of Marion's face. "Oh, sweeting."

"Papa," Marion breathed happily, taking the step necessary to hug him.

When they pulled back slightly from each other, Nycole flung a hand in the direction of one of the glass walls of the room. The panels opened and Carson and Marion walked out onto the balcony to speak in relative privacy while they waited for Evan to have his turn. Evan didn't miss the look of gratitude on Marion's face and the relief on Nycole's. From the way Dr. Heightmeyer had relaxed, she had obviously seen the changes as well.

"Nycole has had a more difficult life than Marion," Ben warned Evan when his attention was back on the Wraith. "More than a few of her memories are unpleasant. I cannot pick out just the ones you would find comfortable. If you do not think you can handle that, it would be wise to refuse now."

"I want to know," Evan responded firmly.

The Wraith looked at him with something that seemed to border on approval and motioned him closer. Evan forced back his instinctive need to stay away from the large predator and stood where Carson had been.

Nycole moved to a position beside him. "I'm sorry for the way I've been acting toward you. I… I think you'll understand when this is done."

Ben didn't give Evan a chance to respond, setting a large hand on each of their heads. This side of the process was not anywhere near as uneventful as watching had been. Evan immediately shut his eyes when the unexpected onslaught combined with what he was physically seeing in a nauseating manner. He wasn't sure what he had expected receiving someone else's memories to entail, but the actual experience was disconcerting.

It was like someone had pressed fast forward too many times when watching a disjointed movie, only instead of just a flurry of images there was also a rapid bombardment of smells, tastes, sounds and physical feelings as well as emotional ones. Evan didn't feel as if he was absorbing any of it, it was entirely too fast for that, but as it progressed he could actually recognize a flash of someone's face, or a place he swore he'd been but logically knew he hadn't visited.

And then he suddenly felt Ben remove the hand from his head. After several seconds of still viewing the mental slideshow but with a toned down feeling to it, he cautiously opened his eyes. Ben had sat down heavily on the end of the bed he shared with Nycole, the young woman hovering next to him. His hands were clutching the end of the bed so hard that his flesh had turned as close to white as someone with bluish-green skin could get. Knowing the Wraith wanted space in a way he could only attribute to the images _still_ flashing through his mind's eye, Evan backed up. He glanced at Kate Heightmeyer to find her alternately watching him, Ben and then Nycole.

"Leave," Nycole said suddenly and firmly.

Kate frowned and opened her mouth, but Evan shook his head and made a shooing motion toward the door.

"Just do it," he urged.

Though the images in his head seemed out of order and lacking true context, part of him understood why Nycole wanted them out of the room _right now_. When he was sure that Kate was heading out the door, Evan gathered Marion and Carson from the balcony and took them with him as he left the room. Part of him assumed Marion would refuse, thinking she'd want to help her friend. But the girl said nothing, happily walking beside Carson as they left the nearly empty tower and headed to the main one.

He managed to hold out until they reached the main area of the central tower before he collapsed.

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"They're gone," Nycole said softly.

The observation would have been unnecessary in any other instance, but as things stood the Wraith commonly known as Ben simply grunted in acknowledgment and slumped further. The vocalization was closer to a growl than a true grunt, but Nycole was used to his sounds and could read this one as easily as others. Kneeling between his legs, she gently but efficiently unfastened his long coat. She left it under him for now, knowing he wasn't going to have the energy to get up each time she needed to dislodge a garment from around his heavier form.

His eyes were closed, and Nycole allowed herself a small grin as she stripped him of his shirt next. He growled at her again, a bit more forcefully this time. He was aware of her amusement through their connection, the only thing keeping him awake. Even it was barely enough for him to retain consciousness, and Nycole was starting to get drowsy too. Straining up and forward, she rested her forehead against his shoulder for several seconds, allowing him to take enough energy from her to stay awake for a minute or two more. His eyes fluttered open when she pulled away.

"You find this humorous?" he asked, scowling.

All traces of amusement fled.

"Not in the least," she responded firmly. "I was simply trying to distract myself from worrying; you did too much at once." There was a heavy silence before she added, "I will never be able to thank you enough for what you've done for me."

His gaze softened, and he lifted a hand to lightly trace over the tattoo above her eye with the pad of his thumb. The unspoken reminder of everything they had been through together sent a shiver down Nycole's spine. They had both done and gone through more for each other in the past. If any of it had been in return for favors, neither would ever be able to repay the other. But it hadn't. It was simply a give and take that had always been part of their relationship, even before the bond.

His arm dropped heavily. She unfastened his pants before looking up at him. His eyes were closed again. Trying to hurry without being rough with him, she turned her attention to undoing his boots before pulling them both off along with the socks beneath. Sitting back on her heels, she studied his bowed head and slumped shoulders.

"Are you going to be able to stand?"

I do not believe so, he answered mentally… with how much the exchanges had drained him, it was a toss up whether mental or physical communication was more taxing.

Nycole considered her very limited options. Not only was he quite a bit bigger than her, Wraith physiology was denser than that of humans, making him even heavier than he looked. There was no way she'd be able to move him in her current tired state.

"Lie down," she told him as she finally made up her mind. "I'll just have to pull your pants off once you're horizontal."

His only response this time was through action. He slid back about a foot and a half before pivoting his body. Seconds later, he was flat on his back at a slight angle across the bed, his feet almost hanging off the edge. No sooner had he gotten into this position than he lost all consciousness. Nycole shook her head when she realized the awkwardness of how he was laying and what it would mean to how she had to recline.

Careful to touch his skin as little as possible, she set to work getting his pants off. It took another few minutes of pushing and pulling the leather before she accomplished her goal. Gathering up his clothes, she lay them out at the head of the bed since she and Ben would be taking up the bottom half. She then stripped off her own outer layers of clothing and added them to the pile. His hunger calling to her more strongly now than it had in a long time, Nycole carefully situated herself before easing into sleep with him.

_**To be continued…**_


	7. Chapter 7

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note**: Sorry about the delay on getting this chapter out. I've been inordinately busy and had writer's block for quite some time. Hopefully some of you are still with me.

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"Ronon, may we stop, please?"

The former Runner scowled at Teyla's plea but backed off and put the practice sticks she had leant him back in the pack she'd brought into the room less than an hour ago. Normally their sparring sessions lasted longer. Ronon never really seemed to tire, and Teyla liked testing her own endurance against him. He was one of the few that could truly challenge her. But right now he was being sloppy and more aggressive than usual. Though she had gotten in a few hits on him, it wasn't worth the punishment she was taking.

"What is bothering you?" Teyla asked when he had taken a swallow of water from a sports bottle and toweled the sweat from his face.

"Our _guests_." He said the word like it was one of the foulest he'd ever uttered.

"Their presence is… disconcerting," she agreed. "You were not here the last time we had an encounter with a time-traveling individual, so it must be even stranger for you."

Ronon grunted. "It's not that. I saw a lot of weird things when I was a Runner, and even more since I joined up here. It's Sheppard's kid being tied to a Wraith. It doesn't make any sense, especially if she told us the truth about her background."

"Something very profound must have occurred for her to have lived among both of our people and yet still be able to have that close of a relationship to a Wraith," Teyla mused.

Ronon gave her the look he usually reserved for when Rodney did something the Satedan considered stupid. "Is there _anything_ that would make you trust a Wraith that much?"

Teyla thought for several silent moments, Michael's face for some reason appearing in her mind's eye.

Pushing the image aside, she shook her head in the negative. "No, I do not believe so."

"Either she's lying about where she grew up," Ronon immediately remarked, leading Teyla to recognize he had expected her answer, "or he's somehow controlling her. We know some of the Wraith can control minds."

Teyla frowned, remembering her own vulnerability to Michael and how it had led to his original escape. "But we have never seen it to the extent you are implying."

It was true. Though Michael had been able to get her to act at his command, she had been in an unnatural state the entire time. If someone had seen her, they would have known something was wrong, that she wasn't acting of her own free will. Despite what she or anyone else might want to believe, Teyla could not honestly say that Nycole had acted as one under the influence of another would the times she had seen her.

"That doesn't mean it isn't possible," Ronon argued. "Maybe that's why there even _are_ humans who are Wraith worshippers. Maybe they get brainwashed by the strongest among the Wraith so that the Wraith can have servants and spies."

"Perhaps," Teyla conceded.

That there might be Wraith out there that could do that scared her. But if it was true, why wouldn't those who could do so just manipulate all of the humans in the Pegasus Galaxy into total submission? Despite the fact that they lived for a very long time, it seemed to Teyla that their numbers must not grow very much since there were so few females. Turning it over in her mind, Teyla realized that while it seemed there was never a lack of the masked, brutish Wraith, the more slender ones who seemed to have more rank and intelligence were not as plentiful. Perhaps there was a reason for this?

Before Michael, thoughts like these never would have entered Teyla's mind. The Wraith were the ultimate enemy and that was that. Michael had been the first Wraith to be a true individual to her, despite the fact that he had not been the first one to be held captive in Atlantis. She still found herself wondering at odd moments if he had managed to survive the bombing of the planet he and the other virus-transformed Wraith had been on. Pushing aside thoughts of Michael, Teyla shifted her attention back to the subject Ronon had brought up.

If she was not controlled by the one she called Ben, would Nycole be willing to tell the inhabitants of Atlantis more about the Wraith? Perhaps something that could help in the fight against them? Or did Nycole's loyalty extend beyond the individual Wraith she traveled with?

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Radek Zelenka was sitting in front of one of many active laptops in Rodney McKay's lab. He was leaning forward on his elbows and staring unseeingly at the numbers on the screen in front of him. His hands were fisted tightly into the hair above either ear. This action served two purposes… the first was the fact that it blocked out some of Rodney's droning whine without making it obvious he was ignoring the other man. The second was that it was a lifelong nervous habit, something he did when he was stressed or confused or otherwise distracted. It was the reason the thin hair on the sides of his head had a tendency to stick out slightly instead of hanging down as gravity and genetics intended.

Rodney was actually so worked up with ranting over the supposed brilliance of his dimensional bridge project that Radek doubted the other man would notice if he left. But then again, Rodney did tend to focus his ire onto Radek with unfortunate regularity when something didn't work out the way he wanted it to. And this was definitely one of those times.

The two of them… originally there had been others in on the project as well but when they had gone to Dr. Weir and asked to be able to work on their own projects, she'd given them permission to escape Rodney's clutches… had been going over the data for the experiment for a few days already. The fact that the information was from the future, a future in which an attempt had been disastrous though fortunately not lethal like some of Rodney's other mishaps, was still throwing Radek.

The math was solid; Rodney's sister Jeannie Miller's equations were amazing and quite brilliant. But despite his and Rodney's best efforts, they had yet to see a way to change something enough to make sure they tapped into a different parallel universe than the one that had tried to attack them in retaliation in what would have been the not-too-distant future. Part of it was being hampered by the fact that they couldn't change anything too much or it might not work at all.

It must have been his exhaustion that made him speak when he said to Rodney, "Maybe you should ask Stargate Command to contact your sister and get her help."

Rodney spun on his heel… he had been pacing back and forth for awhile now and had been facing away when Radek had spoken… and leveled a furious glare at Radek. Fortunately for the Czech scientist, Colonel Sheppard came into the room before Rodney could light into him.

"Hey, Rodney, you ready to give up on that bridge thing yet?" the dark haired pilot asked almost absently. "We could be off world right now if you weren't obsessing."

Suddenly Rodney's wrath had a different outlet, and Radek almost laughed with the relief that swept over him.

"Give up?!" Rodney screeched, his voice several decibels higher than normal. "Why would I give up? Do you _know_ what this could mean? What an advancement it will be?"

Sheppard gave him a quelling frown. "Rodney. You heard what happened. You've seen the file. Do you honestly think it's worth the risk?"

"Yes!" Rodney exclaimed, throwing his hands up in agitation. "You think I don't know we're going to have to make adjustments so the same thing doesn't happen? Have you forgotten that I'm a genius? All I need is a little time… and some support might be nice too!"

"Easy, Rodney," Sheppard held up his hands in placation. "How much time do you think you're going to need? I'm sure Teyla and Ronon and I can handle a few light missions without you."

Rodney huffed, probably in disagreement, but whatever he might have responded with was silenced when Sheppard's right hand went to his ear, his left hand going up to signal Rodney to silence.

"What? What exactly happened?" the Colonel asked whoever had called him. There was a pause as he listened before saying brusquely, "I'm on my way."

"What is it?" Rodney asked. "Do we have any new information on the project?"

"No, Rodney," Sheppard sighed exasperatedly. "Major Lorne collapsed after some kind of memory exchange with Nycole and Ben."

Whether Rodney had anything to say to that or not apparently didn't matter to Sheppard, because he was gone a moment later. Radek gulped when Rodney turned his attention back on him, eyes narrowed.

"What was that you were saying, Zelenka?"

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When Evan first woke in the infirmary he thought maybe he was having some kind of weird dream. He might have been Sheppard's unofficial SIC, but never before had he had both the Colonel and Dr. Weir hovering at his bedside, matching frowns of worry on their faces. Not to mention Carson and Kate Heightmeyer… oh right, his sudden influx of knowledge. Just the thought brought the zipping images in his head to the forefront again. But it wasn't as hard to deal with as before and he was definitely starting to recognize more of them. He moved to sit up, only to have Carson push him back down by the shoulder.

"Lie still, son," the Scottish doctor mothered. "People are often quite dizzy after a fainting spell."

"I'm fine," Evan insisted calmly. "I just got momentarily overwhelmed. Ben warned me that it would be harder on me than it would be on you."

Elizabeth was still frowning, but there was no confusion in the expression, so Evan knew Carson and Kate must have filled in Atlantis' two leaders on what had happened. "Are you sure?"

Evan nodded. "It's a little odd having new memories that aren't mine, but I don't feel injured or sick beyond having a headache. If it would make everyone feel better, you can have the doc scan my head."

That idea was quickly latched onto. Evan suffered through various brain scans and cognitive function tests without complaint. They all came back within normal parameters. The only real thing of note the doctor had been able to find was that there was slightly more measurable activity in the memory center of his brain than there had been in his baseline scan when he'd first come to Atlantis. Considering the reason they were doing the tests in the first place, it made sense.

"Why didn't she ask _me_ to have this done?" John paced as he asked.

Once the doctor had given Evan a clean bill of health, everyone but John had gone back to their own activities.

Evan cleared his throat and waited until the other man looked at him to make sure John would hear what he was saying. "The only memories Nyc has of you are from when she was seven and younger. She doesn't want you to know who she was as a child, she wants you to want to know her as she is now. I… the other me… knew her until she was nearly sixteen, and she was already much of the person she became."

He left out that he had also gotten her memories from after his death… as well as Ben's view of the years the Wraith male had known Nycole. He knew that had been Ben's choice so that at least one person aside from Ben himself would truly understand everything she had been through and done. Ben had chosen Evan because Nycole had known him best, and Ben therefore knew how Evan was likely to react to the information he was given. Evan wasn't sure Nycole was even aware yet of how much he'd gotten in the exchange. When she found out, he hoped it wouldn't make her draw back from him even more. Most people would judge her harshly for a lot of her past.

John sighed but seemed to accept Evan's explanation. A slow, continuous nod showed that he was thinking about it until a call on his radio pulled him back to his daily duties. Once he was gone, Evan laid back and concentrated on Nycole's childhood, curious to know more about what kind of father figure he had been.

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It was shortly after noon the next day before Evan felt perfectly fine again. Random memories would still flash through his mind at odd times, but it no longer affected him as it had. They were simply thoughts now, and he had always had a very active mind. Evan was more than used to having thoughts zipping through his head at all times.

He subtly asked around and discovered that Nycole and Ben had not been seen out of their room since going there after their first session with Kate Heightmeyer. No one seemed overly concerned; some people even seemed relieved. It was something that bothered him a lot more now that he knew what he did. He could understand their point of view, but the foster father in him wanted to beat some sense into those around him. Evan made a stop before heading to the tower where Nycole and Ben's room was located.

When he entered the room after receiving no reply to his knock, he saw that Nycole and Ben were both asleep. He considered leaving for a moment, but he had come here for an important purpose. As he approached the bed, Evan took note of the fact that both of its occupants were clothed for sleep and for near-maximum skin exposure due to Ben's feeding needs. Ben was covered only by something similar to Earth bike shorts, black in color. Nycole was wearing dark blue short shorts and a small tank top that ended several inches above her waist.

She was sprawled against Ben's side in such a way that as much of her skin was touching his as possible. The old but still angry-looking burn scars on her right leg, torso and arm were easily visible… it made Evan's stomach turn for a moment as he saw how much worse they had been in his mind's eye from Ben's own memory of the incident… but her ear and neck were hidden by her hair, which was loose for the first time that Evan knew of since she had shown up.

Something prodded Evan from his subconscious too late.

An instant after the vague hunch, Evan found himself flat on his back on the floor. A hand was at his throat, not quite squeezing hard enough to stop him from breathing, but strong enough to clearly convey that the threat was there. A crouched body pressed his own against the floor in a fairly effective pinned position. Long, dark hair hung down into his face and blocked most of the light in the room as well as the face of the one above him.

His first instinct was to fight off his assailant, but his recent knowledge 'upgrade' let him know that was a very bad idea. Nycole was in an automatic protective state right now due to Ben's vulnerability as he slept and recuperated. Any movement from Evan would result in Nycole attacking him further, a lioness protecting her cub… the analogy fit but was also funny considering how powerful Ben was on his own and how much older he was than the human to whom he was bonded. So, knowing what he did, Evan stilled and willed his body to relax.

After a few moments, he spoke softly. "Nycole, it's me. It's Evan."

Her left hand, the heel of which had been grinding into his shoulder, lifted. Tucking her hair behind her shoulders, Nycole stared down at him for a second. Evan fully relaxed when he recognized that she had truly seen him and knew who he was.

"I'm sorry," she breathed out as she moved off of him.

Nycole didn't go too far, sitting on the floor beside his still prone form. Her breathing was a little shallow, and Evan narrowed his eyes as he sat up to study her in the afternoon light. Her blue-green eyes were glassy and bloodshot, and she appeared a bit pale. Evan was now doubly glad he had decided to bring her food. He didn't want anyone else seeing her like this; they would blame Ben. In a way it _was_ the Wraith male's fault, but the others wouldn't understand the value of Ben's actions or how much they had cost him.

"No need to apologize," he said softly. She tilted an eyebrow at him, and he smirked, "I know better than to sneak up on you, Nyc. I did knock, though."

Nycole gestured loosely toward the bed. "The position he ended up in, I had no choice but to lay on my left side. I didn't hear you, I only sensed movement near the bed."

Knowing she was nearly deaf in her disfigured right ear, Evan nodded understanding. "I came to see if you were hungry. I have a cart with food in the hall. I wasn't sure what the scent of food would do to either of you while he's like this, so I left it out there to be safe."

She was frowning thoughtfully at him now. "How much did he give you?"

"As much as he thought I needed." He added softly, "Xanaiira."

Nycole's eyes widened at his use of the Wraith name the Queen of Ben's hive had given her. "He… he showed you _everything_?"

When she started to draw into herself, Evan leaned towards her. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. Nycole didn't fight him, though he could feel her shaking. It took a few moments, but soon she was returning the embrace, hugging him fiercely.

"He knew I wouldn't judge you," Evan said softly into her hair, his face conveniently next to her left ear. "He knew I cared about you too much, understood you too well, to look down on anything you did."

"I'm glad," she whispered. Nycole hesitated before adding, "I missed you, more than I have words for."

Somehow he knew her hesitation came from not knowing if he minded being referred to as one and the same as his future self. But now that Evan knew what he did, how could it possibly bother him for her to think of him that way?

"I missed you too," he responded easily. "I love you, Nyc Knack."

A soft, breathy laugh escaped her at the use of the nickname he'd given her when she was nine. "I love you too, Evan."

His arms tightened briefly around her, and for a time they simply enjoyed the embrace. A strange sound that was a cross between the hiss of a snake and the rumble of a distant thunderstorm disrupted the quiet moment. Startled, Evan's gaze flew to the only other occupant of the room, who was still completely unconscious as far as he could tell.

"Was that him?" Evan asked, a touch of amusement coloring his tone as Nycole pulled away from him.

"Mhmm," she hummed in the affirmative as she pushed herself into a standing position. "I've been away from him too long. It'll still be awhile before we can be apart safely for more than a few minutes."

Evan watched her stumble back to the bed, knowing better than to offer assistance to the fiercely self-sufficient young woman over something so simple. Nycole returned to her former position draped against Ben's sleeping body. The only difference from when Evan had first entered the room was that she now had her head propped up to watch him.

"So is it alright if I bring you the food?"

Nycole nodded, responding, "Thank you for thinking of it. I couldn't leave him long enough to go all the way to the mess, but I won't do him much good if I allow myself to starve either."

"You could have called someone," Evan told her, his tone slightly reproachful.

Her gaze left his as she answered, "I didn't want anyone seeing him like this. It might make them feel better knowing he can be vulnerable, but it would hurt him for anyone beyond me to really know… and now you. Even Marion isn't aware of how dependant he can be on me when he's been weakened."

"I won't say anything," he assured her.

Nycole's eyes found his again, and she smiled. "Thank you, Evan. Not just for this, but for being willing to know my past."

Evan nodded, a smile on his face as well, and went to get the food. When he came back, he stayed with her as she ate. They talked about things he had found amusing about her childhood, saving heavier topics for another time. Evan took her refuse with him when he left. Though he had left enough non-perishables, mostly MREs and bottled water, with her to tide her over for several days, he promised to bring fresh food when he could as long as she needed him to, knowing she preferred fresh food to packaged items.

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It was another two days before Nycole and Ben left the room. Ben was up and about the previous evening, but because he had still physically appeared tired, they had waited to venture out again. Evidently the four days they'd been in seclusion had not been enough for people to get more accustomed to them being there, because they got as many stares as they did previously.

Actually, the number of stares seemed to increase. But that probably had a lot to do with the fact that Nycole and Ben did not eat alone. A case of very good timing meant John Sheppard, Carson Beckett and Evan Lorne were all taking their lunch breaks at the same time. There was a slight moment of awkwardness when Evan and John both moved to sit by Nycole, but Evan smiled and moved down to sit on Ben's other side. The Wraith ignored him (and the other humans he was surrounded by) but didn't seem to mind the occasions when Evan leaned around him to converse with Nycole. Carson sat on the other side of the table with Marion.

Ronon and Teyla had come in a few minutes after they started eating. Unsurprisingly, the two Pegasus natives decided to sit at a separate table. Rodney had also come in about the same time. After a very visible hesitation he sat down next to Carson. He spent much of the meal staring at Ben, most of his food was still piled on his plate when John, Evan, Nycole and Ben headed for one of the rooms used as a gym. When Carson mentioned going back to the infirmary, Marion said goodbye and hurried to catch up with the larger group.

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John stood off to the side as Evan and Nycole headed for the mat in the center of the room. Marion was sitting on the floor a few feet to his left, Ben standing on her other side. John noted the distance between Marion and Ben was slightly larger than the distance between Marion and himself. He took it as a sign that Marion was not as at ease around the Wraith as they had been trying to make everyone believe. But did that even matter when it was Nycole that Ben was bonded to?

"How's your arm?" John asked her as they both watched Nycole and Evan stretch.

Marion smiled slightly, "A little better everyday. Papa says I'll be able to take off the sling in two weeks."

"Will you be joining in the exercise once you're healed?" he gestured vaguely toward Nycole.

The young woman laughed lightly. "No. I'm nowhere near as physically active as Nyc. And for me to even stand a chance against her, she'd have to tie her feet together and one arm behind her. Even then she'd probably annihilate me."

John was startled when Ben smirked and a very dry chuckle escaped the Wraith. Why he was so surprised was a mystery to John. The Wraith he'd escaped from the Genii with had also had his own odd sense of humor. Uncomfortable with the direction his thoughts had taken, John turned his attention back to the pair in the center of the room. The guards were watching interestedly as well.

Nycole bounced on the balls of her feet when she finished stretching before Evan. The Major had offered to spar with her when an offhand comment at lunch had made it clear she was beginning to feel rusty. John had offered as well, feeling left out, but Nycole had managed to ease some of the fear that he had regarding how much closer she was to Evan Lorne than to him.

"I'd love that, Dad," she'd said with a genuine smile on her face. "But you should probably watch me with Evan first. I have something of an odd fighting style, and I would never want to accidentally hurt you. We can spar as much and as often as you want once you've observed me for awhile."

He'd agreed. Before they'd left the mess, John had warned the guards not to get jumpy during the session. He didn't want someone getting an itchy trigger finger if Nycole proved to be as good as she had implied. Who knew how Ben would react if one of the guards threatened Nycole. The chain reaction that would likely follow would probably not end well for anyone involved.

Evan… John felt weird continuing to think of the man who was his daughter's second father by his last name, so he was making an effort not to… was eyeing Nycole's waiting stance with a mixture of amusement and caution. John thought the amusement probably had to do with the fact that Nycole had mirrored the way Evan was standing.

"You're going to go easy on me, right?" Evan asked her good-naturedly. "I might have the knowledge of how you fight, but I don't have the muscle memory or firsthand experience."

Nycole nodded, a playful smile quirking her lips. Evan made to jab at Nycole, who easily dodged the hit. When she didn't retaliate, Evan rolled his eyes and made another attempt to strike her. This time she didn't avoid his arm as much as the first time, grabbing his arm and shoulder for a throw maneuver that left Evan flat on his back on the mat, the breath knocked out of him temporarily.

John straightened. Something about the way she had moved just then reminded him of Ronon. There was a moment of considering how young she might have started training to fight before he remembered that she'd grown up with other Satedans after Ronon had evidently died in the raid on Atlantis. Actually, now that he thought about it, Nycole hadn't exactly said what had happened to Ronon or Teyla, she had only specified what had happened to Elizabeth, himself, Rodney and the two men who had escaped with she and Marion. He would have to ask her privately if there were events in the future that he needed to be prepared to face in order to save his two alien friends.

Nycole and Evan continued to spar. Though Evan was now more cautious about letting her get too close, Nycole retained the upper hand in the mock fight. And she had been right. She did have an odd fighting style. From hours spent watching his own men and Ronon, he could pick out different techniques that were Earth military in origin as well as what must be a Satedan fighting style. There were also instances of the swift and brutal but still somehow graceful way of moving he'd seen in various fights with the Wraith.

Hints of other fighting styles were also there, something he thought might have been based on Athosian fighting stick style in there as well as a more fierce, less organized way of moving that could only be deemed a Pegasus version of street fighting. Evan did improve in his reactions to her and even got in a few hits, but it was more than obvious that Nycole was still holding back. John's chest swelled with pride. His daughter was a force to be reckoned with.

So it came as a bit of a surprise when Evan managed to clock her pretty hard in the jaw, a growl issuing from Ben. The other man immediately dropped his fighting stance and moved to make sure she was okay. John instead looked for the cause, following Nycole's line of sight to the doorway. He found Elizabeth standing there looking a bit shocked. John walked over to see what she needed, noting the concern in Elizabeth's eyes as she stared back at their daughter but made no move to go to her.

"Elizabeth?" he questioned softly when he reached her.

She took a steadying breath and motioned for John to come with her further into the room.

Her spine was held stiffly as she addressed Nycole, "Later today we have one of our scheduled transmissions to the SGC. The preliminary report on your arrival will be in the data burst, and we need to discuss what may happen once they find out about you."

_**To be continued…**_

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**Author's Note****:** I own the name Xanaiira, which is pronounced Zah-n-eye-ruh. Please don't steal it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined. Flashbacks or memories are** bold**.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note**: A special thank you to Shanthaia and Nalana for reviewing the last chapter… you have no idea how much it meant to me that you took that extra minute.

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"I think we need to be prepared for the IOA to demand that you be brought to Earth for interrogation," Elizabeth said somewhat stiffly. "Especially when they realize they'll be able to control Ben through you."

Marion was in the room as well as Ben, but Elizabeth was addressing the problems they'd be facing to Nycole since she had acted as leader of the small group from the beginning (and quite honestly most of the problems were mostly in relation to Ben and Elizabeth was more comfortable talking to Nycole). It was a decision she and John had discussed.

John just hadn't realized how soon this meeting would have to take place. The last few days had gone by quickly. He'd honestly thought they'd had more time before the data burst had to be sent, so he'd been surprised when Elizabeth had shown up at the sparring room. The entire group had relocated to the same large meeting room they'd used before. Ronon, Teyla, Carson and Rodney had joined them there.

"They're just going to take away my civil liberties?" Nycole asked incredulously. "I may not have ever been to Earth, but I am an American citizen because both of my parents are. I'm also not a member of the military or otherwise employed by the SGC, they can't order me to do anything. I have rights."

"That's true," Elizabeth conceded. "And it might be enough to stop them from being able to do anything to you for reasons pertaining to you personally. But you are bonded to Ben, and he is most certainly not an American citizen. They won't see him as having rights, and because of the bond, whatever they decide to do with him, they'll use it as an excuse to do the same to you."

"Kill us," Ben said suddenly.

"Excuse me?" Elizabeth responded, eyes wide.

"We have both lived in captivity of a kind. We do not wish to live that way again. If the IOA or SGC decides to try to take us to Earth, the best thing you could do for us, and for them, is to kill us. If you do not, we will stop at nothing to remain free."

Elizabeth turned to Nycole, "This is the way you feel as well?"

Nycole nodded in confirmation.

"Well, hopefully it won't come to that."

John really wished Elizabeth had been able to use more positive terminology than "hopefully," but it was the only way he could think of putting it as well.

"Just to be clear," Marion's soft voice spoke up, "that's their choice, not mine. I don't think either group will be overly interested in me and I have no idea of my citizenship because I don't know how Scottish law works in that regard. But I'd rather be stuck at the SGC then dead."

"I won't let that happen, sweeting," Carson assured her.

Elizabeth frowned slightly but didn't naysay Carson's claim. Marion was right in that the powers that be on Earth would probably not find much interest in her. She had no connection to Ben, and she had not been involved in any of the later events that made Nycole's knowledge of the future so intriguing. Elizabeth really didn't think the SGC or IOA would care much about her time growing up on Prizax with the Athosians and Satedans. There was no tactical or technological profit to it.

"For there to be a better chance of the IOA and SGC allowing you to stay here, you're going to have to contribute to the expedition," Elizabeth told Nycole after a few moments had passed. "While the information you've given us is an excellent start, we feel it would be even better if there was more."

Nycole frowned, and John added his own comment.

"Maybe there are planets you can tell us about that could be good trading partners, or ones to stay away from for whatever reason."

"You really think it would help if I could provide something beyond the files from what would have been the future of the expedition itself? Maybe turn myself into some kind of Pegasus Galaxy consultant?"

John and Elizabeth both nodded.

Nycole bowed her head slightly for long moments, her forehead wrinkled in obvious thought. When she spoke, it was hesitant and soft.

"I… I know of two planets where there are… ZPMs. They're not fully powered, but they have enough energy stored in them to do some good. You could ship one to Earth to power the chair in the Antarctic outpost."

Rodney sat forward at this news, his eyes bugging. "Is one of them the planet you got the puddle jumper from?"

Nycole's head snapped to the side to glare at him. "No. I will never take you to that planet. And even if I was willing to, the planet it's on doesn't have an active 'Gate and is deep in Wraith territory."

The astro-physicist sank slightly in disappointment.

"Why didn't you tell us of this sooner?" Elizabeth asked.

Nycole looked her straight in the eye. "In any negotiation, but most especially when your life is on the line, you don't lay out all your cards at once."

The former diplomat nodded her head in acceptance of the statement.

"What do we need to know about these two planets?" John asked to keep the meeting going.

"One of them will be risky to go to, it's close to a planet one of the hives uses as it's place of hibernation. I have no way of knowing if they're awake right now or not."

"Ben's hive?" Rodney interrupted.

Nycole shook her head. "No. If it was, it wouldn't be a risk. In any case, the second planet is tucked out of the way in an uninhabited system, but the ZPM is half a day's hike from the 'Gate and the puddle jumpers won't be able to fly."

"Does it have one of those technology-impairing shields like that planet with all the kids?"

Though it took her a little longer… John thought she was probably trying to recall from the reports she had what planet Rodney was referring to… Nycole shook her head again at Rodney's question. "No, it has to do with natural electro-magnetic interference in the planet's upper atmosphere. I'm not entirely clear on the science behind it, but radios and other small things will work fine, it only affects larger technology."

"How does the Stargate work then?"

Nycole shrugged. "Ben and I took an educated guess that the 'Gate has something built into it or the dialing device that counteracts the atmospheric conditions and allows it to work, but we weren't about to take it apart and risk stranding ourselves just to find out."

"Mm," Rodney muttered. "Without training, that _would_ have been a big risk."

Ben made a sound between a huff and a growl, and Nycole narrowed her eyes at the astrophysicist once more.

"What exactly makes you think we have no training?" she asked him. "Do you really think the time travel jumper was in pristine working order when I found it? With just the right compartments to store our possessions? Or that Ben lived as long as he has without receiving any education? Evan has an engineering degree and he taught me everything he knows. Not to mention the training I had when I lived with the hive."

"You were taught by Wraith to use their tech?"

She raised her left hand and waggled her implanted finger at him, "There wouldn't be any point to this if they hadn't."

Rodney opened his mouth, but Elizabeth cut him off, "Later, Rodney. If things work out, you'll have plenty of time to ask her about it."

"Which of the two planets do you believe we should go to first?" Teyla was the one to try to keep the momentum of the meeting going this time.

Nycole shrugged. "I suppose whichever one will fit into the schedule best."

"We should save the planet with the atmospheric interference for second," John decided. "Gauge how well things go on the easier planet first."

Nycole nodded in acceptance. "You'll need to use two jumpers if our full guard is coming along."

"Ben won't be going," Elizabeth said firmly. "He will stay under guard, but you will just be with the team. Think of it was another way of proving we can trust you."

Her face pale, Nycole swallowed hard before saying, "As much as you don't trust us, I think you can imagine how we feel. I can't leave him here."

"I'll stay with him the whole time," Evan spoke for the first time since the meeting had started.

Nycole's posture relaxed and she nodded. "Okay."

No one disagreed with the arrangement, and attention turned to planning the details of the first mission. They scheduled it for the next day for two reasons. First, having an extra ZPM would be a very large strategic advantage. Secondly, doing it that soon meant they could report an immediate plan of action in the databurst that evening.

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John flew Jumper One through the 'Gate. It was the next morning, and other than a slight hesitation in leaving Ben behind when John had come to her room to collect her, Nycole had been calm and obedient so far. It was a bit odd going on a mission with another person added to the usual team, especially since it wasn't Carson (who was really the only one who went off world with them without it being a whole additional team coming along… Lorne had been on plenty of missions with them, but always with his team too).

When they came through the 'Gate on the planet three star systems away from Atlantis, John turned the vessel to follow a heading twenty-three degrees from the original flight path just as Nycole had instructed when she'd given them the details of the outpost. From what Nycole had been able to discern when she'd originally come here, the outpost was a testing facility for an advanced long range sensor project that had been abandoned during the war with the Wraith.

Nycole was sitting in the seat next to John's scanning the heads up display… a small version that was situated in the lower right hand side of the forward window so that it wouldn't distract John's flying… for any sign of Wraith activity.

"Wait!"

No sooner had the word come out of Nycole's mouth then the jumper stopped, hovering in place. A slightly disgruntled look automatically came to John's face when he realized how quickly the ship had obeyed her. Nycole gave him an apologetic smile, and John forced a normal expression on to his face. He'd have to leave her mental commandeering of the jumper off his mission report. No one else would actually know it hadn't simply been him to halt their trajectory.

"What? What is it?" Rodney asked in the are-we-there-yet whine he cultivated on jumper missions, no matter how short the journey.

"Look," Nycole said, the smaller display now taking up the entire viewscreen area. "There's a force field around the outpost."

"You did not mention a shield when you told us of the planet," Teyla observed.

"I didn't think I needed to," Nycole responded, making the image on the screen zoom out to point out two small structures, each a few miles from the protected outpost. "We came here almost thirty years from now. The shield wasn't… won't be… active at that time because of an automatic shutdown that happened when the power in the ZPM fell below a preset level. I had no way of knowing it had happened within this timeframe. It's not a big problem though, these two control towers have a manual override for the forcefield. We just have to decide whether we'll go to each place as a group or split up and save time."

"Any suggestions?" John asked, turning his chair to look over his team.

"We should do what will allow us to follow mission parameters as closely as possible," Rodney remarked. "Land an equal distance from all three places. One of us should go with Nycole to the first station while someone else goes to the second and the other two can go to the outpost, or we'll never make it back in the time Elizabeth allotted for the mission."

"Are you volunteering to go with her, McKay?" John asked.

"Are you kidding?" Rodney let out a nervous laugh. "Actually, I was kind of thinking Ronon would be the best choice."

Ronon threw Rodney a sour look, but John noticed he didn't dispute the shorter man's words. "You're okay with that?"

Ronon shrugged and his mouth curved in what could only be described as a sneer despite the fact that he'd tried to disguise it as some kind of smile. "I can handle her."

John had to hide a grin when Nycole rolled her eyes. Ronon hadn't been there when she'd been sparring with Evan. John wasn't sure which of them would win if Ronon was actually fighting without holding anything back, but he knew even if Ronon did win, it wouldn't be as easy as Ronon was implying.

"Alright," John said. "So we've got a plan. Ronon and Nycole will go to the first generator, Rodney and Teyla can go to the other one, and I'll go get the ZPM."

"What? Why do _you_ get to get the ZPM?" Rodney complained.

"Rodney, if there's any sort of problem at the power station, we'll need you to fix it. And Teyla doesn't have the gene so she couldn't retrieve the ZPM. Nycole could, but she is more likely to be able to troubleshoot the generator than I am."

Rodney grunted in acknowledgment. John found a good spot to land the jumper and everyone climbed out. With an agreement that they would all head back to the jumper when their individual tasks were done, the three small groups headed out.

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Nycole and Ronon's trek to their assigned task was uneventful, silent and quick. Nycole kept the fast pace Ronon set without a single comment, making subtle gestures when he would have asked if they were still going in the right direction.

The power station was a slender alcove, smaller than some of the closets in Atlantis. Nycole slipped inside and got to work. There was no way Ronon was fitting in there with her, even if he had wanted to. Instead, he decided to take a quick stroll through the immediate area. You could never be too careful.

Ronon's ingrained paranoia was justified several minutes later when he heard sounds of movement a short distance from his current position. The sounds were too uniform to be an animal, and there were at least three beings doing the moving. It was much too soon for it to be Sheppard, Teyla and McKay.

He'd gotten pretty far from the alcove where he'd left Nycole, but not for a moment did he consider going back for her. Instead he stalked forward quietly, though his stealth became rather pointless when the already sparse trees thinned completely into a grassy clearing. A grassy clearing with three Wraith, two of them the larger, masked version, heading directly toward him. They didn't pause as they spotted him, raising their stunners and moving toward him more quickly instead. Ronon drew his weapon and turned it to the kill setting in one smooth motion.

His first blast was lucky, catching one of the masked Wraith as it turned its head directly into the line of fire. Ronon was shooting at the second of the more brutishly built Wraith before the body of the first one had hit the ground. The male was able to expel a single discharge at Ronon, hitting his right leg with numbing blue energy, before Ronon shot him twice. The second shot killed him. But Ronon's distraction with the two larger Wraith had left him open to their leader, and unmasked, tattooed slender but tall and strong 'officer.' The more intelligent of the Wraith was carrying one of the smaller stunners, a weapon that allowed multiple blasts in a much shorter timeframe. And he was taking advantage of that fact.

One of the stun blasts hit Ronon's gun hand as he was turning to face his new attacker. His fingers went numb and his weapon went flying. He was hit twice more in rapid succession, struck in the chest. The ground hit his back with a speed that knocked most of the air from his lungs. Taking only a quick glance at the Wraith bearing down on him, Ronon tried to drag himself toward his gun but failed to get very far. He was very weak and getting weaker. One more blast and he would be out. He could feel it. He'd been shot with stunners enough times by now to know. This was it. The end.

Some part of him had always acknowledged that his goal of killing every single Wraith would not be fulfilled in his lifetime, but Ronon had hoped he would not face his own end at the hands of one of them. Enough Satedans had fallen to the monsters. Part of him wanted to close his eyes, to let himself imagine it was some other enemy about to end his life, but the rest of him knew he had to face his death… look it in the eyes… if he were going to have any kind of peace in his last moments. Lifting his head, Ronon stared directly at the approaching Wraith's face.

So when the life-sucking alien's eyes widened into an oddly blank, surprised look, Ronon frowned in confusion. A glance down the Wraith's torso showed the pointed end of one of the full-sized stunners speared through his chest at a position that lined up with the large male's heart, dark blood staining the usually light-colored metal. The Wraith fell to his knees rasping for air, revealing Nycole standing behind him with a fierce scowl on her face.

Before Ronon could find the energy to try to move or make a sound, she came around the Wraith to his side. A short nod followed a cursory perusal of Ronon's body. And then she was pulling his sword from the scabbard on his back and moving in front of him. The Wraith had, in the meantime, pushed the end of the stunner back into his own chest and was trying to reach around to pull it from his back. There was no hesitation in the swing of Ronon's sword, held confidently in Nycole's hands, as it separated the Wraith's head from its body.

Now Ronon was too stunned to even attempt to move or say anything. He watched silently as Nycole efficiently searched the dead Wraith's body, finding a small device with a red glowing light that she quickly turned off. He recognized it as a homing beacon. Ronon waited until Nycole had moved away after wiping his sword clean and returning it carefully to its home on his back before speaking to her.

"You saved me."

"Why do you sound so surprised?" she asked.

"You killed a Wraith to save me."

"You're very observant," Nycole remarked dryly. "Do you have a radio?"

Ronon tried to gesture but couldn't. "It's on my belt, left side." As she moved toward him again, this time to retrieve said radio, he returned to his observations. "You killed a Wraith. Isn't yours going to get angry?"

Nycole rolled her eyes as she detached the radio from his belt, calling her father on it. "Dad, Ronon's had a little run-in with a few Wraith and some stunners and won't be walking for at least twenty minutes. If you get back to the Jumper before then, would you mind coming to get us, we're about two and a half clicks northwest of the 'gate."

"Will do," came John's slightly static-muffled reply. "You'll be alright until then?"

"Yes, it was just a small scouting party. Ronon took care of two of them and I got the last one. There's no one else around."

"Okay, Rodney and Teyla are already at the jumper and I'm on my way back to it, so we should be there soon. Sheppard out."

Nycole sank down cross-legged a few feet from where Ronon had fallen. Setting the radio next to her on the ground, she turned her gaze to meet his.

"I told all of you that I'm not a Wraith worshipper. You can believe me or not, but Ben knows that I'm not one. He knows I'm not going to just let myself or someone under my protection be taken or killed by the Wraith."

Ronon's eyebrows rose. "I'm under your protection?"

Nycole's eyes darkened and she turned her face away from him, staring off into the distance. "Everyone in Atlantis is."

"You don't like me much, do you?"

She didn't look at him, but Ronon could see the clench of her jaw in profile before she responded. "I don't know you. Not really. You aren't the man who gave me and the other children piggyback rides over the catwalks or the one who…"

When she trailed off and didn't continue, Ronon frowned, feeling like he was missing a big part of some scenario. But she didn't seem comfortable talking about it and she _had_ just saved his life, so he supposed he could let it go for now. There was one thing he wanted to know now though.

"What's a piggyback ride?"

That startled a laugh out of her, and somehow Ronon wasn't all that surprised to find himself smiling at the happy sound. She was so serious most of the time, like him. He studied Nycole as she told him about the Earth term for a game most adults played with their children no matter what galaxy they were from. Though he hadn't spent much time near her, he'd kept both ears open and mentally filed away every comment or conversation he overheard about her.

There were a lot of other ways she was like him too. Her ferocity, her training (yes, he had noticed the exchange between John and Nycole when he'd suggested he could 'handle' her without a problem… he'd actually been testing them to see if they'd say anything about it as he'd been intrigued since getting an earful about her performance from one of her guards), her years of solitude… though hers had in part been in the midst of others which in some ways had to be more difficult since she could never allow herself to trust anyone… but it always came back to the one point where they were different.

The Wraith and how she felt about them. He glanced at the nearby, decapitated Wraith out of the corner of his eye. Okay, so maybe it was how she felt about _certain_ Wraith and not all of them. Nycole also had a single-minded hatred like his for the Wraith, though hers was reserved for the Genii. He tried to imagine the Genii he knew of taking over Atlantis and failed. Things must really change in the next nine years.

Ronon noticed a shift in the way Nycole was holding herself, and a second later he heard the quiet engines of the puddle jumper. Did she really hear it before him or did she feel it coming because of the gene of the Ancestors she had inherited from her father?

Nycole glanced at him, "Can you stand?"

"I don't know," Ronon answered before making an attempt.

He managed to struggle to his feet, and she was there for him to lean on when he would have faltered and most likely fallen. Nycole acted as his crutch all the way to the jumper, where Teyla came out and helped get him into the back section of the jumper and onto one of the bench seats. When Nycole moved to walk into the fore section, he grasped her wrist.

When she looked down at him with a closed off expression, he said gruffly, "Thank you."

Some of the tension left her, and she responded lightly, "You're welcome."

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Distracted by thoughts of what Atlantis' flagship team may have gotten up to on their mission, Elizabeth glanced up from her laptop idly. She nearly jumped out of her seat when she saw Lorne standing in the doorway. Ben and his current six man guard… Nycole's temporarily unnecessary guard had simply been assigned to stick with the Wraith… were behind him.

"Is there something I can help you with, Major?" she asked when her heart had stopped hammering into her ribs.

Lorne shrugged slightly, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in Ben's direction. "He says they'll be back soon."

Elizabeth's eyebrows shot up. "He can feel her from that far away?"

"Yes, ma'am," came the answer before Lorne seemed to consider something. He added, "They've only been on separate planets a few times since the bond was initiated. Sometimes they can feel each other and sometimes they can't, but it doesn't seem to have anything to do with distance."

"Hmm," Elizabeth made a thoughtful noise, filing the information away with what else she'd been told about the bond.

Just then, the room beyond her office lit up with a rippling blue light, almost instantly followed by the blare of the wormhole activation alarm. Sure enough, a second later Chuck's voice was heard calling loudly, "Off-world activation."

"Looks like he was right," Elizabeth said as she stood.

Lorne and the others with him backed up as she rounded her desk, allowing her to walk into the control room ahead of them. She noticed Ben's attention immediately went to and stayed on the 'Gate in the larger room they overlooked.

"It's Colonel Sheppard's IDC," Chuck confirmed.

"Deactivate the shield," Elizabeth ordered routinely.

A few seconds after the white flash that indicated the shield was no longer in the way, there was a bigger ripple in the surface of the blue contained within the ring of the Stargate. And then the puddle jumper was gliding effortlessly through. Instead of immediately lifting through the ceiling to go into the jumper bay, it hovered there.

"We'd appreciate it if Carson could meet us in the jumper bay," John's voice came over the radio patched into the Atlantis system.

"What happened?" Elizabeth asked via the ever-present headset in her ear.

"Ronon got stunned; we can go over the particulars soon, but he's fine. It's almost completely worn off, but it's protocol to inform the CMO when something happens to a team member off-world."

He didn't need to add that they had to do things as by the book as possible in any event that included their time-traveling visitors, no matter how small a role they played in any given situation. They all knew it.

"I'll tell him," Elizabeth assured. "We'll debrief in two hours."

John's response was brief as the jumper finally began it's ascent into the jumper bay. "Thanks."

_**To be continued…**_


	9. Chapter 9

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note**: Sorry for the delay on this chapter. There are reasons, but most of them are personal. The chapter is a bit long to make up for the wait. Please read the second Author's Note when you reach the end of the chapter.

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As soon as John parked the puddle jumper in the spot reserved for the machine his team typically used, he stood and went to the back to see how Ronon was doing. Nycole's assertion that Ronon would be fine had been enough for him to be able to focus on just getting them home, but now that they were here he had the need to check on his friend personally.

When John reached the rear section of the jumper, Ronon was standing on his own. Teyla and Nycole were close by, but John could tell from the looks on each woman's face that though they were there if Ronon needed someone to lean on… John smiled internally at the mental image of Ronon leaning on the much shorter Teyla… they didn't think he would be requiring their help. The last bit of tension from the unexpected twist to their mission left him. Nycole had warned that the planet they had just visited was close to a hive, so nothing had gone so far out of the expected mission parameters that the SGC or IOA would be able to make a big fuss about it.

John glanced back to where Rodney was possessively clutching the ZPM they'd retrieved. When John had pulled it out of the small station it had been in, its glow had been brighter than the one currently powering Atlantis. He didn't think it was a scientific enough observation to completely confirm its power level, but he had hope that Rodney would examine it and find that it was even more of a find than they had thought it would be. Which, given the fact that it had still been powering a shield that hadn't been active in Nycole's time, was a pretty strongly supported hope.

The ramp lowered, revealing Carson and a small team waiting for them with a gurney. Ronon scowled at the object but climbed onto it without any arguing the moment Carson opened his mouth. The rest of the team and Nycole filed down the hall after them, knowing post-op checkups for the necessary evil they were. Evan and Ben… and Nycole and Ben's guards… met them on the way, staying out of the way of the medical personnel to fall into step behind John and Nycole.

Nycole slowed momentarily so that she was walking beside Ben instead of by him. Glancing back to see Ben doing a thorough visual sweep of Nycole, John realized it was at least partially so that the Wraith she was bonded to could see for himself that she had come back fine. It took most of the sting out. Ben and his half of the guard… as well as Evan… ended up leaving shortly after when it became clear that there wasn't really room for all of them in the infirmary, Nycole promising to meet up with them when the debriefing was over.

"I will stay with Ronon," Teyla said half an hour later when everyone had gotten an all clear but the Satedan.

He was no longer showing any motor function related effects from being stunned, but Carson had gone to retrieve some painkillers for the headache Ronon was now suffering. John didn't envy his alien friend, having suffered the hangover-like aftereffects of a stun blast more than his fair share of times. Rodney glanced at the rest of the team and then at the object in his arms, his indecisiveness clear. It had been amusing to watch the nurses have to work around the bag holding the ZPM since Rodney wouldn't let go of it.

Ronon took pity on him.

"Go poke at your new gadget, McKay," he said gruffly. "I'm fine."

"Of course you are," Rodney agreed as he straightened and headed off, most likely to his lab.

"What about you?" John asked Nycole. "There's a little over an hour until the debriefing."

Nycole shrugged. "I think I'll go get a snack and then wait in the meeting room. You'll join me there before it's time?"

John nodded and watched Nycole and the three Marines once more guarding her leave. As much as he would have liked to spend the extra time with her, he had a couple things to do before the debriefing.

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A little less than an hour later, John stepped into the room they'd be using to debrief… Elizabeth's office just wasn't big enough with the addition of Nycole and her three shadows. Seeing Nycole already seated as he had expected, he pulled a sheet of paper out of the file folder he was carrying and handed it to her. He also pulled off a pen that had been slipped to the cover but waited to give it to her.

"You want me to fill out a mission report?" she asked after she'd inspected the paper. "You don't think the IOA or SGC would have issues with that?"

John shrugged as he sank into the chair to her right. "We're not going to put it in the official file for just that reason. But if they decide to play Devil's advocate and demand to know why there isn't one, we'll have it ready."

"That would fit with what I've read about them," Nycole muttered, taking the pen he handed her and turning her attention to the single sheet of paper.

Generally, mission reports were typed up on one of the expedition laptops, but Elizabeth was still adamant about keeping to the rules as much as possible. And one of those rules was to keep people outside of the expedition from using the expedition's equipment.

John spun his chair slowly when he heard footsteps moving toward them from the hallway. Rodney, an excited expression on his face as he looked at something on his laptop, came in followed by a bemused Teyla. Ronon was trailing the two, a thoughtful frown on his face as he moved a bit slower than normal. John had the impression that it was due to whatever was on his mind and not any residual physical condition from the Wraith stunners.

"The ZedPM we just got has slightly more energy than our current one," Rodney happily told John. "I think it would be best to send the old one to Earth."

"I'm sure that option will be considered," John answered.

Rodney nodded somewhat distractedly as he moved to Nycole's other side to sit. When his attention finally left his computer, he cocked his head to try to look at the paper in front of Nycole. The young woman raised her eyebrows when Rodney slipped it out from under her hands, turning her head to watch as the Canadian frowned.

"What is this?" Rodney asked.

John was going to scowl at the scientist and ask him why he didn't recognize a form he had to fill out on an all too regular basis until he realized from Rodney's tone that he truly didn't know what he was looking at. It was a rare occurrence (or at least it was a rare occurrence that Rodney _admitted _not knowing something) but John had known him long enough to recognize the tone. The observation of another saved him from trying to figure out what he'd missed.

"It's Satedan," Ronon said as he sat down, having peered at the paper in Rodney's hand as he passed them.

"What, you can't write in English?" Rodney asked smugly.

"Of course I can," Nycole snapped, grabbing the form back from him a bit violently. "I just haven't had a reason to for more than a decade. No one in the Pegasus Galaxy, aside from the members of this expedition, reads and writes English. So it hasn't exactly been a skill I've used a lot lately. In some cases, it might even have gotten me killed."

Rodney frowned and turned to Ronon, "You don't write in English?"

"I'm learning to," the taller man answered, "and while I am, Teyla fills out my reports for me." He asked rhetorically, "What do you call it? Dictation?"

"I had to focus on little else for the first few weeks after we had to abandon Athos so that I could learn to write in English," Teyla added. "I have always been a quick learner, and it helped that your language shares some similarities to the written form of the Athosian language."

Rodney blinked, "I didn't know there _was_ an Athosian language."

A slightly put-upon expression formed on Teyla's face. "Every culture from a different planet in this galaxy has its own. Dr. Zelenka is from the same planet as you and yet he speaks another language does he not? I was under the impression that many members of the expedition spoke something besides English."

"Well, yeah," Rodney agreed. He gestured to Teyla and Ronon. "But both of you speak English, so I just assumed you could read and write it too."

"Actually," Nycole broke in, "they're speaking Common. They'd never heard the word 'English' until the expedition came. And while Common is extremely similar to English, there is no written form of it. Not that I'm aware of anyway."

Ronon nodded his head in agreement, and Teyla added, "To my knowledge, there is not."

John leaned in to look at Nycole's slightly wrinkled form, which she was now re-filling in… having neatly crossed through the Satedan words… using the only language _he_ could read and write. He'd taken Spanish in high school, but he hadn't retained much. He did know a few basic phrases and swear words in different languages that he'd picked up through people and places he'd been stationed around and in during his military career, but that was pretty much the extent of his linguistic skills.

"How many languages _do_ you read and write?" he asked his daughter, trying to remember how many Elizabeth knew… five? Six? Though other than Ancient, all the ones Elizabeth could decipher were from a single planet… Earth.

Nycole set her pen down and began ticking off individual fingers for each language she mentioned, "English, Satedan, Athosian, Wraith, Ancient…" Nycole's voice became colder, "and Genii. Plus rudimentary knowledge of a handful of languages used by the people subjugated by the Genii that my squad had dealings with. Hard to make sure the natives aren't planning a rebellion if you can't read what they write."

"Makes sense," John said neutrally, recognizing that the subject had become something other than what it had started out as… and that Nycole wasn't happy about it.

His daughter bent her head slightly and returned to writing her mission report. Rodney opened his mouth, but John shot him a look. For once the other man took the cue without making a fuss, turning to his laptop and focusing on something on it for a while… probably the readings on their newest ZPM. He only hoped Rodney wouldn't get it into his head that they now had a "back up" that would make going through with the universal-energy-bridge project okay.

Not only was there no point without serious changes being made… there had been no energy collected in the cross-universe disaster of a mission… but that had not been the point of _this_ mission. They all knew both ZPMs Nycole was leading them to would be confiscated for use in the Milky Way galaxy. The most they could hope for was the one with the most power in it being the one to remain in Atlantis.

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Rodney barely paid attention in the mission debrief, too wrapped up in going over all the readings from the new ZedPM and the limited data he'd been able to download from the power alcove he and Teyla had visited on the planet. Though the long-range sensor modifications had never been completed by the Ancients running the outpost thousands of years ago, he had been able to get some of their theoretical specs. They were by no means complete, but they still provided a starting point to make improvements to Atlantis' systems.

His part of the mission wasn't really a focus anyway. And although the amount of attention paid to the 'Nycole, Ben and Marion' situation had been making him feel left out lately, for the moment he didn't mind. It gave him more time to brainstorm over what he could do with access to more ZedPMs and how he was going to fix things so that he could still run his experiment. According to the files Nycole had given them, Rodney's future self had gone to Earth to discuss Jeannie's equation and its applications with her and then brought her to Atlantis to help him. Maybe if he didn't find a solution himself… and that wasn't as a big an 'if' as he would have liked to admit… he could talk the SGC into letting that happen again, this time with the emphasis on altering Jeannie's equation without making it unusable.

He smiled smugly to himself. If Jeannie was writing equations like this one in her spare time and traveling across galaxies without her family in tow, she must have at least partially realized he had been right about her choices the last time they'd really spoken. Rodney couldn't wait to hear her apology.

He was surprised out of his self-satisfaction by the two people on either side of him… Ronon on the left and Nycole on the right… standing up. A focusing blink and a quick look around the room showed that the meeting was over and everyone was leaving. Everyone but Elizabeth. She had stood up but hadn't moved away from her chair yet, instead watching Nycole leave with an expression Rodney couldn't quite read. Either something had happened in the meeting that he'd missed, or she was just still conflicted over Nycole. Even he had noticed the tension between the women during the times he'd been in the same room as the two of them.

Rodney had been meaning to bounce ideas off of Teyla about why Elizabeth was acting the way she was, but he'd been too wrapped up in his other concerns to make the time. Perhaps when they went on this next mission he would walk with her and discuss it then. If he remembered correctly, Nycole _had_ said the ZedPM was half a day's hike from the 'Gate. Groaning at the thought and hoping the planet's terrain was relatively flat, Rodney tucked his laptop under his arm and followed his team.

"Hey," he puffed when he caught up to Ronon, who was heading in the direction of the mess. "When are we going on the next mission?"

"Fifteen hundred tomorrow, McKay. Other teams are using the 'Gate in the morning and Weir thought it would be better to head out in the afternoon, stay overnight where the ZPM is and then head back the next morning."

"Overnight," Rodney flinched at the whine in his own voice. "Do we really need to spend that much time off-world with everything else that's going on?"

"If you felt that way you shoulda said something when Weir asked if anyone had an objection to the plan," the taller man shrugged.

"Yes, well," Rodney deflected dismissively, letting the subject drop as they got in line to get food.

He'd have to make sure he packed more than his usual allotment of energy bars. He might also have to dip into his chocolate stash and keep a dessert reward handy for when they reached their destination. He would certainly deserve _something_ for the effort it would cost him.

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"Unscheduled off-world activation." Dr. Weir was in her office in a meeting with a team that had returned ahead of schedule that morning, so after paging her Chuck followed his own announcement with the standard procedure. "Raising shield."

Chuck's eyes widened when he received the IDC signal. Hearing the sound of Dr. Weir's stride coming to a stop behind him, he turned his head to look at her.

"It's the SGC, Dr. Weir," he informed her. "There's an audio-visual signal coming through."

Dr. Weir straightened, folded her hands in front of her, and nodded grimly to him. "Put it up."

His fingers flying almost automatically, Chuck routed the 'call' to the nearest computer screen. He didn't want to miss this, and …well, frankly, Dr. Weir was right there anyway.

"General," Weir greeted when Landry's face appeared.

"Doctor," the older man fairly barked in reply. "I imagine you know why I'm calling."

"I assume it has to do with our latest arrivals," Dr. Weir answered. "Though I am surprised you were able to call instead of having to send a message via the Daedalus."

Landry grunted before saying, "The Asgard are helping us out."

Weir nodded acknowledgment.

Landry narrowed his eyes when she didn't say anything, then launched into a short spiel. "This call is just to set up another in three hours time. You'll need to set up a video conference somewhere other than the control room so we can speak with everyone involved. We're sending a short data burst with the necessary amount of screens and such for our end of the call. I'm sure you have someone on staff capable of setting that up."

"More than capable," Weir said in an ironic tone.

Chuck fought to keep a smile off his face. Something like that was almost child's play to most of the expedition, with the only possible exception being a few of the military staff, though most of them had above average intelligence as well.

"Is there a reason for the three hour wait?" Weir asked. "It shouldn't take us even half of that time to set things up."

Landry shifted his weight, his eyebrows drawing together slightly. "General O'Neill is flying in from DC; he lands in two hours."

Weir nodded again. "If that's all, General, we look forward to hearing back from you."

"I'm sure you do," Landry remarked dryly before the feed was cut.

Seconds later, the wormhole shut down as well.

"Would you like me to get things ready?" Chuck asked when Dr. Weir continued standing next to him with a troubled frown.

"Yes," she responded, a slight smile that didn't make it to her eyes touching her lips. "Thank you, Chuck."

"No problem, Dr. Weir."

He only wished he was an important enough member of the expedition so that he could be in on the conference. As it was, he'd just have to wait for the events to make the rumor mill via one of the men guarding their 'guests' in order to find out what happened.

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Nycole frowned when a knock sounded on the door of the room she shared with Ben. It was too early for anyone to be coming to get him or her for something. There was nearly an hour until lunch and another three after that until she was supposed to leave with her father and his team to go after the second ZPM. She glanced at Ben.

Your father, he informed her simply.

Wiping the frown from her face as much as possible while she was still curious, Nycole called, "Come in."

She could tell from the serious look on his face when he entered that her father was not there for a social visit.

"What is it?" she asked immediately.

"The SGC," John answered. "They're getting help from the Asgard in order to have a teleconference with us about the situation. They want all three of you there as well."

"When?" Nycole queried.

"Half an hour," John replied succinctly. "We need to head over there now. Carson and Marion have already been sent for."

Nycole nodded and stepped toward him, not needing to look at Ben since she could tell through the bond that he had set aside the laptop he'd been working on to get up and join them. Her father turned on his heel and headed back out of the door he'd only just stepped through. She and Ben followed. John was tense, and Nycole knew if she let herself think too much, she would be as well. The last thing they needed was to come across as too on-guard in front of the SGC.

"Will this postpone the mission?" Nycole asked as a way to break the silence.

John shrugged. "I don't know. I suppose it depends on how long the conference goes and what they say."

There was a tension in his voice that told her silence might very well be the lesser of two evils. Not for the first time, she wondered if she had chosen the right point in time to come back to. If they had shown up with knowledge of the location of ZPMs _after_ the Atlantis one had been drained, the SGC and IOA would undoubtedly have been much more grateful. But no, if she _had_ waited until the expedition had already been stuck in the Pegasus Galaxy, they would have wanted to know why she hadn't stopped it from happening. No matter what she might have tried, they would always have found a way to look at it negatively. She had chosen the option that worked the best for what she wanted.

Nycole remained silent the rest of the way. She didn't even comment or acknowledge anyone verbally when they joined the rest of the senior staff… plus Evan, Marion and Marion's guards… in one of the larger conference rooms. She and Ben were directed to two seats next to Marion where the three of them were in range of a single video camera. There were a couple of low conversations going on between some of the other people in the room, but it all stopped when the signal for an off-world activation was heard. Nycole watched as her mother lightly touched the communication device in her ear.

"Put it through," she said, sitting up as straight as she would if a ruler were strapped to her spine. When the three screens in front of them flickered to life… each holding the image of a single man… Elizabeth said in a more officious voice, "Gentlemen, I believe you know the members of my senior staff and Major Lorne. Our guests are Marion Beckett, Nycole Sheppard and… Ben."

The pause before Ben's name was minute, and though Nycole flinched internally at the fact that her mother had even the slightest bit of trouble acknowledging him, she didn't think the men watching from another galaxy would be able to detect it. One of the two Generals, the one that had a bit more of a portly figure though he wasn't quite fat yet, opened his mouth but was interrupted with a pointed throat-clearing by the frowning man with glasses and a bald pate.

"These gentlemen are Generals Landry and O'Neill of the SGC and Homeworld Security, and I am Mr. Woolsey of the IOA," he grimaced, the fact that he was addressing Nycole and her companions even more clear with his next words. "Though I suppose you already knew that."

"Why would I?" Nycole responded. "There aren't exactly any personnel files in Atlantis for the three of you, certainly not any with pictures."

"Hmm," Woolsey hummed disapprovingly.

Apparently he hadn't wanted an answer to his observation. Though there were plenty of ways she'd like to tell the sour little man off, Nycole sat back and held her tongue. She knew what was at stake.

"Now," Woolsey said, "to the reason we've gone through all this effort. Is there anything to add to the report sent with the databurst?"

"One of the missions we specified has occurred," Elizabeth reported. "Other than a few slight complications, the mission went as planned. The ZPM was retrieved and is actually more charged than anticipated."

"I see," Woolsey bit off. "And what were these complications? Explain, if you would, Colonel Sheppard."

"There was a shield that had to be deactivated," John said as nonchalantly as possible while still sounding professional, "and we had a small run-in with a few Wraith."

"I see," Woolsey said again, looking slightly more animated. "And how do we know _this_ Wraith didn't contact the others, leading them directly to you?"

Nycole bristled but remained silent. They were likely to use any outburst from her, no matter how justified, to say she was a danger. Beside her, Ben sent her waves of reassurance, letting her know he understood why she wasn't verbally defending him.

"Ben wasn't with us," John said calmly. "And even if Nycole could contact other Wraith without him acting as a link, I doubt she would have then killed said Wraith, saving the life of a member of my team."

Woolsey blinked in apparent surprise and looked down, no doubt going over written notes that were out of camera view. General O'Neill… the nameplate on his uniform more visible when he leaned forward… took the opportunity to speak.

"Do you have any intentions toward Earth?"

"No," Nycole answered with a shake of her head. "Aside from being the place my parents are from, Earth means nothing to me. If I have my way, I will never leave this galaxy."

"And to your," he gestured loosely in Ben's general direction, "_friend_?"

"It holds even less meaning to me," the Wraith answered.

"Not even the six billion happy meals on legs walking around, ripe for the picking?" O'Neill asked.

"Because of the bond, I do not feed," Ben replied. "And through the records kept by this expedition in what would have been the future, I know any attack on Earth would not be worth the loss of Wraith life nor the time it would take to travel there."

"As logical as that is," Landry joined in, "I think you can understand that we can't just take your word for it."

"He's telling the truth," Nycole asserted.

O'Neill seemed to be mulling something over, while Landry and Woolsey each gave her a look that showed her word meant just as little to them as Ben's did. She had hoped it wouldn't come to this… there were so many ways it could go wrong… but this meeting was pointless when those on Earth had already decided not to believe anything they were told.

"Can I make a suggestion?" she asked before anyone else could say anything more.

O'Neill made a 'go ahead' gesture.

"I've read some of the older files that were sent with the expedition as reference material, and I know there is a device that shows whether a person being questioned is telling the truth or not," she said. "I assume someone will be coming on the Daedalus to… inspect the situation. Why not bring the device so these doubts can be handled permanently?"

"People can deceive a polygraph," Woolsey said dismissively. "Who knows if it would work at all on a Wraith?"

"I wasn't referring to a polygraph," Nycole refuted, her eyes locking on O'Neill, who looked like he had an idea of what she was talking about. "I meant the Tok'ra device used when sabotage was suspected in the SGC."

Though she could tell he had expected it, General O'Neill reared back slightly. Nycole remembered there being vague reference in the file to some trouble with two members of SG-1 and the device, and for a moment she wondered what had happened. But as long as whatever it was didn't interfere with using it in her situation, it didn't really matter.

"We'll take that into consideration," General Landry conceded. "But the Tok'ra usually take a few days to get back to us, and the Daedalus is scheduled to begin the trip to the Pegasus Galaxy tomorrow. We'd have to delay Colonel Caldwell with no way of knowing if the reason for doing so was going to happen."

"Actually," Rodney piped up, "that might not be a bad idea anyway. I assume you've had someone check to see if my sister has sent her physics proof to be published?"

Realizing Rodney had not given up on the project that she'd come back to stop, Nycole wanted to bang her head… or more appropriately, _his_… on the table in frustration. But it wasn't her place to actually stop him; that would have to come from someone in charge. And apparently them not having the same agenda as her was going to work in her favor, at least for a short time.

"Yes, Dr. McKay," Landry huffed. "She has in fact just sent it in. It hasn't been published yet, but it soon will be. What does this have to do with delaying the Daedalus?"

Rodney leaned further forward, "Now that we have a more powerful ZedPM and will soon have another, I'd like to come through the 'gate to Earth and visit my sister. For work, of course. Considering what we know about what would have happened, I'm sure I can talk her into coming back to Atlantis with me on the Daedalus. We can use the three-week travel time to work out how to alter her proof so that the problems that would have happened, don't. And as an added bonus, I can bring the other ZedPM through with me and you won't have to wait for the Daedalus' return trip to have that one for the Antarctic chair."

Landry and O'Neill glanced at each other and then at Woolsey, who grimaced again and said, "Excuse us for a moment, please."

Though the video feed remained on as the three men spoke to each other, the audio signal had been cut. Nycole risked the chance to glance around. Teyla looked as she did in all of the previous meetings Nycole had been a part of, sitting primly but not appearing overeager. Ronon was sprawled in his chair, also as per usual. Rodney was fidgeting slightly, obviously eager for the higher ups to give in to his plans.

John and Elizabeth were both staring at the screens and sitting ramrod straight. Nycole thought her mother might be attempting to read the lips of the men on the monitors. One of Carson's hands was under the table, and from the angle of his arm, Nycole thought he was probably holding Marion's hand in his. Her eyes shifted to Evan, who chose that moment to glance at her as well. He gave her a tight but heartfelt smile before turning his attention forward again.

Nycole turned her head to look at Ben. She knew through their bond that he was perfectly fine, but looking at the others and being able to tell how they felt about what was happening by their body language was making her curious as to how an outsider would see him. He turned slightly toward her to accommodate her, and she could see amusement in the subtle way his eyes flicked to hers and away. But would anyone else see that?

Maybe Evan… and to a much lesser degree perhaps Marion or Carson… but all the others saw, all they probably ever would see, was a Wraith. Dangerous, cold and aloof. And all she could see when she looked at him was, well, _him_. She'd known him too long and too deeply to be able to see him objectively.

"Dr. McKay," Woolsey suddenly spoke… Nycole just managed to hide her surprise. "As long as Dr. Weir and Colonel Sheppard can handle not having you close at hand for the time it will take, we have no objection to this new plan."

Rodney smiled his pleasure, and Elizabeth confirmed, "I'm sure we'll be fine. The timing is slightly different than it would have been, but nothing that required Rodney's presence occurred in Nycole's timeline while he went to Earth."

"If my team has any missions where a fourth is necessary," John added, "we can assign someone else short-term."

"Very well," Landry responded. "Dr. McKay, when should we expect you so that we don't have a scheduling conflict with one of our off-world teams?"

Rodney clutched his laptop to his chest and half-rose from his chair. "About two hours. That should give me enough time to switch out the new ZedPM and pack what I'll need."

Landry motioned to someone off-screen, and a hand held a clipboard up for his inspection. He waved it away moments later. "Two hours will be just fine, Dr. McKay. Try not to be any later than that."

Rodney nodded and was out of the room moments later.

"Unless there was anything else any of you wanted to add," O'Neill said, "I think we can wrap this up. Any questioning would just have to be redone later, so I don't see the point in wasting anyone's time."

"Thank you, General O'Neill," Elizabeth replied. "I think that's for the best."

O'Neill nodded and made a cut motion in front of his neck. The screens went black a moment later.

Nycole forced herself not to laugh derisively when she heard several sighs of relief. It wasn't that she wasn't relieved at how smoothly this first step had gone; she just knew that what was to come would be so much more treacherous.

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Adjusting the right strap of the pack on her back, Nycole fought to hide a wince. On top of being nervous about spending a night away from Ben… it had only happened twice since the bond had been initiated… her shoulder was acting up. Although a great amount of the damage had been healed shortly after the injuries were sustained, it hadn't been healed enough for there not to be lasting effects. If she didn't stretch and massage certain areas of her right side enough, the tension that built up around the scarred tissue generated a lot of pain and stiffness. She would have to do what she could herself once they stopped for the night.

Her father had decided to keep the mission on schedule, so after seeing Rodney off to Earth, she and the three remaining members of Atlantis' flagship team had headed through the 'gate on foot with the necessary supplies to stay overnight. They were making better time than they probably would have if Rodney had been with them and were now only a couple miles from where Nycole knew the ZPM to be. It was when she glanced up to check the position of the sun to judge the passage of time that she saw the smoke and froze, a confused frown on her face.

Teyla noticed that she had stopped and backtracked to join her, tilting her head as she asked, "Is something wrong? If you are tired, we can rest for a short time."

Instead of answering verbally, Nycole pointed. Following her finger, Teyla spotted the smoke, her eyes widening slightly.

"Perhaps it is a small wildfire. There may have been lightning in the area recently."

Nycole shook her head, "It's too uniform and narrow to be a wildfire. It's either a campsite or a house."

"I thought you said this planet was uninhabited?" Teyla frowned.

"It was," Nycole muttered, more to herself than to the other woman, "twenty eight years from now."

She had just turned to call her father when she saw movement in her peripheral vision. Using military hand signals to tell Teyla they were being followed, Nycole made the decision to join their companions silently and hopefully without letting whoever was out there know that they knew they were being followed. The two women ran to catch up with John and Ronon… just in time to be surrounded by Wraith.

Nycole frowned even as she automatically raised her hands to show that she was unarmed. There was something strange about these Wraith. Only a couple of them were wearing the traditional leathers, the rest dressed in garments of natural fibers… but that wasn't what was bothering her.

"Drop your weapons," one of them barked.

Despite his own momentary hesitance and Ronon's outright refusal, John did as ordered. Teyla complied directly after. Not having been allowed to bring any weapons with her, Nycole simply stayed where she was. After a short argument with her father… John won simply because of the sheer numbers surrounding them… Ronon tossed his gun away as well. The Wraith weren't fooled.

"_All_ of your weapons."

Ronon shed the knives he wore in obvious view along with the sword strapped to his back.

The Wraith snapped, "I said _all_…"

One of the others lay a hand on his shoulder, soothing, "Thale will deal with them."

Moments later another male came into view, presumably Thale. One glance at him and Nycole realized why the group of Wraith had seemed odd to her. He was dressed in tan trousers and a cream-colored long sleeve tunic, the left sleeve rolled back slightly to show a thick metal cuff around his wrist. But it wasn't his clothing or his lack of visible tattoos that told her what she needed to know.

Tall and lean, Thale had the green skin common to most Wraith… but his features bore telltale signs of human blood. His nose and mouth were human in appearance, and though he bore the eyebrow-less forehead of a Wraith as well as the secondary nostrils, the Wraith features were muted. His eyes, pupils vertical slits, were the wrong color: a reddish brown instead of yellow or green-gold. His hair, too, stood out, pitch black. Female Wraith occasionally had hair of varying colors, but every male Wraith Nycole had ever seen had white hair.

And though their non-Wraith attributes were not as obvious as Thale's, now that Nycole had seen his, she could pick out signs of mixed blood in nearly every one of the males surrounding them. They had somehow stumbled upon a settlement of hybrids. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse than it would have been to run into a scouting party of full-blooded Wraith.

Thale glanced at her, eyes narrowing when he saw the marks on her face. She took the opportunity to speak to him telepathically on the level used by all Wraith, automatically trying to find the more personal 'frequency' used by this group as she had been taught to while living with Ben's hive. Thale rebuffed her mentally for the attempt and proceeded to ignore her. Not wanting to chance making things worse, she stopped trying. Thale spoke briefly with the male who had ordered them to drop their weapons before turning toward Ronon.

"If you do not remove your weaponry yourself, we will take them from you _and_ you will be held separately from your companions."

Glaring the whole time at the newest arrival, Ronon divested himself of a few more knives that had been hidden on his person. Thale waited silently with a pointed stare. Grumbling under his breath, Ronon tossed three more to the ground.

"That's all of them," he snapped as the last one hit the rather impressive pile that had accumulated in the ground.

Thale nodded shortly. A few orders to his men and to them, and the group was moving in the direction of the fire Nycole had noticed. A mile later, they broke in to a clearing that held a midsize village populated by even more Wraith as well as many humans. They were led to a large cell-like cage and ushered inside, most of the men who'd originally surrounded them heading back into the trees. Six stayed to guard them, Thale walking a short distance away to speak with a female Wraith who had gestured to him when they'd arrived. She walked away moments later, obviously agitated, while Thale remained where he was. Nycole tore her gaze away from the hybrid male to check on her father and his team.

"She did this on purpose!" Ronon seethed through clenched teeth, stabbing an accusatory finger in Nycole's direction.

"Ronon!"

Though John's voice held a warning tone, the Satedan's name was all he said. He didn't defend her nor did he remind Ronon that Nycole's intel on the planet was from nearly thirty years in the future and therefore impossible to guarantee one hundred percent. Instead, when Ronon stalked away as far as he could in the cage, John turned to Teyla and began to talk quietly. He didn't ask her to join them, not even with a glance in her direction. Did that mean he secretly blamed her too?

Nycole hung her head for a moment. Nothing was ever easy. Tamping down on her sadness, she fed her anger and began pacing. She did some of her best plotting when rage cleared all other thoughts from her mind.

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Thale ignored the mental prodding of one of the men guarding their prisoners as he stood watching them. The quarter-human male wasn't the only one who wanted to know what they were going to do with the four humans, but Thale couldn't tell his people what he didn't know. Two of the humans… the darker skinned female and the male with oddly styled hair who was the apparent leader… were standing together and speaking in low voices. Thale assumed they were trying to plot an escape. The larger male, a Satedan by the mark on his neck, was standing near but not with them, glaring at the fourth member of the group.

_She_ was an oddity. Despite her present choice of companions, she had to have some history with the Wraith that was more than just that of potential sustenance. After all, she did have an implant on one of her slender digits, and that technology was not wasted on those who were to be fed upon. He knew of no strictly-human culture that was proficient enough in the surgery required to successfully attach the hardware to a human finger so that it would correctly interface with the nervous system. He had no way of knowing just by looking if it was 'wired' properly, but the fact that she was able to use her hand with full functionality suggested it was.

There was, of course, a chance that she was the worshipper of a hive other than the one the tattoo under her left eye claimed. While under normal circumstances no hive would dare use the marking of another's Queen, the past couple of years had been anything but normal. The waking of so many hives at once… only those too far out of range or strong enough to ignore the Keeper had remained in hibernation… had been only one of the things that had led to the current civil war. The Keeper had died with two things on her mind: revenge against those who had killed her, and the supposed overabundance of people fresh for culling on the planet Earth.

The first had given those woken by her dying telepathic screams an extra edge of violence that had made former tenuous alliances impossible to maintain. True, they had banded together at first to attack what they had believed to be a return of the Ancient Enemy who had long ago abandoned the humans of this galaxy. But once more had become clear, there had been no hope of the entire Wraith race remaining allied. Despite their ability to use 'Ancient' technology and the fact that they made Atlantis their home, these new arrivals were not a return of the race that had come before. But they had still been able to do more damage to the Wraith than any other culture had in ten thousand years.

And Earth, with its promise of enough humans to feed the entire Wraith race for some time, was not reachable. Not only that, but the food supply within their own galaxy had not been given sufficient time to replenish itself. If the hives that had woken much too early had been willing to go back into hibernation to await the time when they were scheduled to awake, it would not have been as big a problem. But none of them had been. They were all too afraid of reawakening later to find opposing hives with so much power that their own would be wiped out.

Perhaps the tattoo and the finger implant had been intended to make her a tool, to put someone inside another hive to gather information or commit some act of sabotage. But no matter how she had received these gifts or for what reason, how she had then infiltrated the humans currently claiming Atlantis as their home was a mystery. The only reported use they had for the Wraith was as experimentation subjects. Thale didn't see how they would then take to a Wraith worshipper with anything resembling trust.

Well… the Satedan apparently didn't, but the other two did not seem to share his disdain of her.

What made Thale more wary than any of this, though, was the amount of telepathic skill she possessed… that and the fact that he was drawn to her. True, he was lonely, but he had been for thousands of years. What made now… _her_… any different? Thale gave himself a mental shake.

Her telepathic prowess was yet another reason to believe she had at one point been loyal to a Wraith hive. Some humans had rudimentary skill in this area… and he'd met a few who had the gift due to genetic manipulation… but she was different. When his people had first confronted hers, she had tried to find his people's group 'wavelength,' only falling back to the universal one used by all Wraith when he rebuked her for the uninvited attempt. She'd been apologetic and had immediately switched tactics to pleading for him to not let the confrontation get out of hand.

He'd ignored her, mostly out of lingering shock that she'd even known to look deeper than surface level for the nuances of the telepathic channel used by the people he led, but he had still done as she asked. The fact that he recognized the uniforms on two of the others with her had a lot to do with it. He had no desire to have the other humans of Atlantis coming here to seek revenge for their fallen friends.

He just didn't know how to send them away without still endangering his people. Part of him hoped that if he just sent them on their way, they wouldn't bother coming back. And maybe, if this had been one of their normal explorations, they would have. But from what the men who had been tracking them since their arrival had seen, the mysteriously marked young woman had been leading the group somewhere. Which meant they were here for a specific reason. He had no way of knowing if whatever it was they were after was enough to warrant them coming back with bigger weapons, or even ships, to kill his people in order to get to it.

And he couldn't deny that part of his hesitation _had_ been her. It made him uneasy… and unable to truly concentrate on his current predicament. His attention kept drifting back to her, watching as she paced along one wall of the cell, her gaze focused outside of her prison. He stilled when her blue-green eyes found him and did not move away, narrowing in apparent consideration.

_**To be continued…**_

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**Second Author's Note**: I use the term "hybrids" in describing Thale and his people. Please note that this is because they are _natural_ hybrids from the inter-breeding of two species and **not** _genetic experiments_ like the abominations Michael calls hybrids in the show. To me there is a very vast difference.


	10. Chapter 10

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note**: Wow, been awhile. Had some trouble with this chapter, and don't even get me started on RL. Hope anyone who has stuck around enjoys!

I have changed the breaks in this story to match those done for TDL. A centered line of multiple "x FNM x"s is a scene break, a single "x FNM x" left justified is a POV change.

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Nycole paced the front wall of the cell. Why couldn't just _one_ of the missions she'd had a hand in planning go off without a hitch? This latest calamity was sure to be a black mark against her… if they got out of it. She was pretty sure they would. Almost all of the Wraith she'd seen so far in this settlement were hybrids, and though they were obviously agitated by the Atlantis team's presence, they hadn't been overly hostile. They were more curious than anything else. Especially about her. Every individual that had passed by had glanced over the whole team but lingered longer on her.

The black-haired one, Thale, stared at her even more. And though there was nothing malicious in his gaze, she did feel an interest from him that had little to do with her being a stranger to his planet. Something she had only ever felt before from people she'd rather not have. But in this instance, as with certain previous occasions in her life, she might be able to use it to her advantage. Moving close to the cage door, she beckoned to the tall male both mentally and with a hand gesture. After a slight hesitation, he walked over.

"I'd like to speak with you in private," Nycole said when he looked askance at her.

"Nycole!" John protested behind her.

She glanced back at him, "Trust me."

The worried look didn't leave John's face, but he nodded grudgingly. Nycole pushed aside the hurt over her father's doubt and turned back to Thale.

"Stand back," he said after searching her eyes.

Nycole followed his instruction, waiting as he unlocked the door. She eased through the opening and stood, subdued, as he closed and locked it. Thale gestured to a small building nearby and told her to walk to and into it. Nycole tamped down on the wariness that always occurred when someone she didn't know was behind her, moving quickly while being careful not to move too fast and agitate her captor. He followed her inside and shut the door behind him.

"You wanted to speak to me," he prompted almost immediately.

Nycole raised her chin and looked him directly in the eye. "I saw you watching me."

Thale smirked. "I was watching all of you. You are my prisoners, after all."

"No," she corrected, moving to stand directly in front of him, mere inches separating their bodies. "You weren't watching anyone else the way you looked at me."

She lifted a hand to his chest and splayed her fingers caressingly. He sucked in a breath when her hand trailed down his torso, the muscles there jumping at her touch under the lightweight natural material of his tunic. She stepped in even closer, her body brushing his, and trailed her lips along his jaw in a barely-there caress. When she leaned her head back to look into his face once more, his eyes were half-closed.

"Let them go and you can have me," she said softly as she took a step back, creating space between them once more.

"You would do that for them?" he asked incredulously. "Lie with one of Wraith blood?"

"I will let you do anything you want to me," she confirmed. "I just can't let you kill me."

When he opened his mouth, she waved a dismissive hand, "It's not my own life I protect but that of someone who depends on me. When you release the others, he will have to come here and be with me in captivity in order to live."

"You are bonded," he said in obvious surprise, stepping closer to her again though he wasn't as close as she had gotten when trying to tempt him. He lifted a hand to trace a finger down the mark under her eye. "This is real."

"You recognize it?" Nycole asked.

She'd thought he hadn't since he had dared to throw her into a cell with the others. She had assumed that being a hybrid, and a member of a large group of them, meant he knew less about markings and their meanings. Apparently she'd been wrong.

Thale nodded. "I assumed it was a fake. According to my intelligence the Queen of that particular hive is still in hibernation, and you are much too young to have known her before that, let alone have done something to deserve the mark."

Nycole didn't know how he'd gotten that information, but it was the closest thing someone could come to the truth without knowing her very odd history. She only wished the part about the Queen being safely in hibernation was true.

"It's… complicated," she hedged when it became clear he was waiting for some sort of response.

The male hybrid gave a half nod. "I will release the others, and you." He sighed heavily, "We will have to move earlier than I had intended."

"Your group?" she asked.

Thale nodded. "I am forced to assume that there are special circumstances that cause the Atlanteans to harbor you and the one you are bonded to, but we are well aware of their hatred for the Wraith. I will not risk the lives of my people by staying in a location they know about."

"I'm sorry," she cringed.

"For what?" he asked with a frown.

"I'm the one who led them here. I believed the planet to be uninhabited."

"Then you have nothing to apologize for," Thale dismissed readily.

"You are rather forgiving for a Wraith," she said quietly. "And I don't mean anything negative by it; it's just an observation."

"Wraith is not all that I am," he replied just as softly. He hesitated visibly before saying, "If you wish to join us, we are always glad of more members. Perhaps you and your mate…"

"We're not mated," Nycole interrupted. "Just bonded."

A full smile appeared on Thale's face and he leaned in even closer. "In that case," he murmured, tracing her jaw line with a fingertip, the gentle scrape of his nail sending a slight shiver down her spine, "perhaps you will find yourself attracted enough to someone among my people to take a mate. Then the one you are bonded to can go back to his hive if that is his wish."

"What do you mean?" she frowned.

"You did not know? A mate bond supersedes the other kind of bond."

Nycole looked down. After a quiet minute, she said, "I didn't know. I would… have to talk to him about it. I… we've been through a lot together. It would take more than just physical attraction for me to tie my life to another after this long."

"I understand," he responded, stepping back to move away from her. "Come, we will free your people, though you will all have to stay long enough to let us be prepared to leave."

"Wait," she called, grasping his arm at the wrist to hold him in place.

Her skin touched the unadorned metal cuff at his wrist, which seconds later was _not_ unadorned. She glanced down, feeling engravings under her fingers. Her eyes widened at the gate symbols she found there. There were dozens of them in a filled-in triangular design. They didn't make much sense in order from left to right, but the eight symbols that formed one side of the triangle formed an address she knew, as did seven of the ones that formed the bottom. The eight symbols were the address to Earth from Atlantis, and the other seven she recognized formed the address to a planet that had been very important to her in the past.

"Who are you?" they both asked.

"Only those with the blood of an Alteran can reveal the symbols," he told her when she hesitated, unsure how to answer his question. "Are you one?"

Nycole shook her head. "No, my parents are humans from Earth. I inherited what my people call the Ancient gene from my father. But why would you keep an artifact that you couldn't read so close to you?"

Thale ran his own hand over the gauntlet twice. The first pass made the symbols disappear, the second made them reappear. When he was sure she had seen what he'd been able to do, he caused them to disappear once more.

"What made you think I could not read it?"

"You're half Alteran!" she breathed in surprise. "But… how?"

A half-smile quirked his lips. "The usual way… but perhaps we should let your people out of the holding cell before we have this conversation. And… I would appreciate if this could stay between you and me. It is known, of course, that I am a half blood, but everyone assumes my other half is simply human. If it were known… I might not be allowed to stay with these people, to lead them as I have for thousands of years. It may even cost me my life if the information was given to the wrong person."

"I won't say anything to anyone," she paused for a moment. "I will even hide it from the one I am bonded to if you ask me."

"If you trust him to keep it to himself, that is not necessary. But I appreciate the offer. I know about the complexities of bonding, and it will be easier on both of you to not keep things from each other. But again, only if you do not think he will share it with others."

"Thank you," she responded simply.

"Before we go to release your friends, why did you call me back?" Thale asked.

Nycole shrugged slightly, "I was going to ask that you not mention what I offered you. Their leader, the man with the short messy hair, is my father. And, well, none of them would understand the lengths I'm willing to go to, lengths I've had to go to before."

"I will never mention it," he assured her. "I understand the things people can be driven to do. Perhaps you will tell me your story one day."

"Perhaps," she echoed lightly.

With one more lingering glance at her, Thale turned to the door of the small building and exited. He allowed Nycole to trail behind him this time. Her father seemed to recognize the significance of that allowance, because he stood a bit closer to the door of the cell, his stance more relaxed than it had been since before they had been forced into the structure.

"I will release you," Thale said when he had approached. "You will be given back your weapons, with the understanding that if one of you attacks one of my people, they will defend themselves. I am afraid, however, that you will not be allowed to return to Atlantis until my people have the chance to prepare to move to another world. I am sure you can understand why we would be unwilling to risk our lives by trusting you not to come back until we had moved on."

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John grudgingly accepted Thale's terms. The team was released from their cell and led to a house near the small building in which Nycole had spoken to Thale. They were given back their weapons and told they had free use of the house for the duration of their stay. Thale excused himself, saying he would be back in a short time to discuss allowing them to contact Atlantis. When they had been left alone, Teyla asked Nycole how she'd talked Thale into letting them out.

"I asked nicely," she said.

"It can't possibly be that simple," John responded.

Nycole frowned slightly, "What would Thale and his people have to gain from keeping us prisoner or killing us? Most groups social enough to know what's going on in the galaxy know that teams from Atlantis are never just left behind, and your team is more well known than the others. And among the Wraith, news of your various betrayals and experiments is wide spread. Thale knows he can't keep us here indefinitely, and he wouldn't risk his people just to kill us for stumbling upon their encampment."

"Betrayals?" John echoed, ignoring the rest. The rest was too logical to argue against, and he needed to argue right now. Things had skewed _way_ too far off course, and he had a bad feeling about what it would do to the chances of the IOA and SGC letting _them_ choose how to deal with Nycole, Ben and Marion. "_We_ were betrayed by the Wraith in _every _dealing we've ever had with them."

"That's not true," Nycole immediately refuted.

"Ben doesn't count," he shot back. "We haven't really made any deals with him."

His daughter's eyes narrowed, and John's stomach sank. He was pushing her away… and he couldn't seem to stop himself.

"I wasn't talking about Ben. The Wraith you escaped from Kolya with didn't go back on _his_ word."

"True," John grudgingly admitted. The Wraith had restored his life force completely, _before_ he had known that it was Sheppard's people that were only a short distance away and not more Genii. "But he was one Wraith, alone. _Every_ group we've encountered has gone back on their promises."

"Because you always intended to go back on yours," Nycole said flatly. "Even when it was just you and him you never meant to keep your word. The stars only know _why_ he trusted you."

John's frown deepened, but it was Teyla that asked, "What would our being cautious have to do with the Wraith failing to keep to our agreements?"

"You weren't cautious, you were preemptive. The Wraith read people; I know you know that by now. Even those who don't have enough skill to actually read a mind can feel certain things. And one of the easiest things for a Wraith to recognize is dishonesty. As soon as they feel at all threatened, the Wraith are going to have plans in place to save themselves. Anyone would, especially when they've been betrayed before."

John couldn't meet the intensity of Nycole's gaze anymore and turned his head to glance at his two teammates. They were looking at each other and then him. Nycole's passion… and the deeper issues John could sense lay behind her words… were too much to face head on when they were already in such a stressful situation.

When he looked at his daughter out of the corner of his eye, her own eyes were narrowed as they swept over the Atlantis team. Her mouth thinned, a white line forming around her compressed lips, and she breathed out heavily through her nose. A second later she whirled and headed through the main door of the house. John took a step to follow her, more out of instinct than anything else, but was stopped.

"Let her go, John," Teyla said, holding him back with a hand on his arm and an understanding look. "Give her time to 'cool off,' as your people say. Thale will not allow her to leave the planet, and I believe of all of us, she is the one safest alone in the company of these Wraith."

Ronon huffed. "Neither of you find all of this just a little too convenient?"

Teyla took on a troubled look, but shook her head after a moment. "Nycole would not do anything to escape Atlantis if Ben was not with her. It has to be an unfortunate coincidence."

"I'll believe that," Ronon said, "when we're back in Atlantis _with_ what we came for and everyone we left with."

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The Wraith commonly known as Ben… Evan knew his real name but wouldn't use it until he had been invited to do so… stopped in the middle of a sentence, his head tilting and a subtle change coming to his features. It had been several hours since the flagship Atlantis team, with the temporary subtraction of McKay and addition of Nycole, had left.

Ben had been showing Evan the specifications for one of the gadgets he and Nycole had stored in the time travel puddle jumper and which the pair was working on modifying. Feeling bored and confined stuck in Ben and Nycole's room, and knowing it must be a thousand times worse for the Wraith, Evan had asked to see them, having heard about the project from Nycole the previous day. He wasn't sure he'd actually be much help, but the simple act of reviewing the data would give he and Ben something to do.

Evan was dressed in civvies since he was technically off-duty, and the two of them were sitting at a simple table Evan'd had brought in. He'd leave it there for the room's actual occupants to make use of however they saw fit, but Evan just hadn't been comfortable with the idea of sitting on the bed with the other male, which was how Nycole worked with Ben. And now, something in him that wasn't really him recognized the look on the Wraith's face.

"What's wrong?" he asked, hoping it was something minor.

"I am not sure," Ben rumbled after a minute. "I cannot feel her as strongly as I did on the last mission. But something has happened, something that has made her angry."

Evan frowned. The limited information made the situation impossible to try to find a solution. The problem could be something as simple as Ronon making a remark about the Wraith when Nycole wasn't in the mood to hear it, or it could be something that had put the mission in danger of failing.

"Should we tell Dr. Weir?" Evan asked.

Ben shook his head once decisively. "We do not know enough. Unnecessarily worrying her would only make things worse. All we can do is be prepared for when we know more."

Evan knew the "we" was limited to Ben and himself, and though part of him wanted to warn Dr. Weir… partially because she was his boss but mostly because Nycole was her daughter and John was, well, _something_ to her… he knew the alien male was right. There was no point to making anyone panic, least of all Weir. They would just have to wait and see if whatever had happened affected the mission. Unfortunately, because of the atmospheric interference, that meant they'd have to wait nearly twenty-six hours for the team to be due back in Atlantis.

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Nycole only got ten feet away from the door before realizing she had nowhere to stomp off to. Just because Thale had been so accommodating thus far did not mean she had the right to go wherever she wanted in the settlement. And the place she really wanted to go… to the site of the ZPM so they could just go straight back to Atlantis when this was over… was outside of the village. She definitely had to ask permission before attempting to leave.

Reaching out tentatively with her mind since he'd rebuffed her first attempts to communicate with him that way, Nycole mentally searched for the Alteran-Wraith hybrid. Thale responded immediately, letting her know his earlier resistance to that type of communication had been because he had assumed her to be a spy. He also let her see his own private frequency, one that was maintained separately from that of his "hive." The reason for this was two-fold: she could now communicate freely with him on any subject without fear of someone else listening in, and it was up to his people to decide if she was trusted enough to be allowed to speak telepathically with them. For now, they had not been approached on the subject.

Are you busy? she asked once she'd acknowledged and thanked him for the information.

Not with anything that cannot wait, he replied. I am on my way to you.

Nycole waited less than a minute for the dark-haired male to reach her. She smiled in greeting when he did, though hers was a bit more forced.

"Is there something wrong?" he asked her aloud.

She shrugged, trying not to let it show when her right shoulder tensed too much and caused a burning pain to ripple down her arm. "Just a little disagreement with my father. I'll get over it."

Thale's gaze went to the house for a moment before finding hers again. "He seems… _young_ to have sired you."

Nycole nodded agreement. "It's part of that complicated story I mentioned. Which, if I can ask a favor, I might have the time right now to tell you some of…"

Thale inclined his head the tiniest bit, encouraging her mentally to go ahead and ask.

"We came here for a reason," she reminded him. "I'd like to leave the settlement and complete the mission, _without_ my father and his team. I thought if you came with me, I could have permission to leave temporarily. And since I'm unarmed, I don't think there's a need for anyone else to come along."

He gave her an amused look as he said, "I do not believe you being without a weapon means you are not dangerous. A Queen would never allow someone under her protection to leave the hive if that person could not defend his or her self. But yes, I will accompany you. Just tell me what we need for this mission of yours."

It took them only a short time to gather the few things that Nycole thought might be necessary. They were silent until they had left the unmarked boundaries of the settlement a significant distance behind. Even when Nycole began to share the basics of her life history with him, she did it without speaking. Partly to prevent anyone who might have followed them from listening in, and partly because once a person was used to it, telepathic communication was much faster to get things across accurately. Thale was surprised but not shocked by the more 'interesting' parts of her story, easily believing what she shared with him because of his own past experiences with Alteran technology. When she was done with her tale, he began to share his.

Thale's mother Linia had been a healer, and though it was a previous generation that had taken the actions that changed the Wraith and caused the start of the war between the two races, she had never approved of what had been done, nor the way her own generation had chosen to carry on. Despite her protests, or perhaps because of them, her main assignment was to provide care for the Wraith held in Paititi, a city-ship not dissimilar to Atlantis. She did so without complaint, though there were many close calls with more than one of her patients. Most Wraith were as blindly hateful of the Alterans as the Alterans were of the Wraith. With good reason.

One day a new group was brought in for genetic experimentation. But first they had to be fully healed from the injuries sustained in their capture. Having heard what was in store for them, Linia did her best to slow the healing process without it hurting the Wraith or being obvious to their captors. It was, however, obvious to the Wraith, and she earned their respect. Through sheer luck, there came a time when many of the residents of Paititi were called to the battlefront for an important standoff and the number of guards on the Wraith grew low. Drugging those who might have been able to stop her, Linia got the small group to a ship and away from the city. She would have gone back after taking them to an uninhabited planet, but the eldest of them had become captivated by her and would not allow her to go to her death. He was Thale's father, and Thale was born less than a year after the escape.

The group of Wraith had, in that time, an opportunity to rejoin their hive. The rest of the group did so, but Thale's father remained on the planet with his new family, fearing that his Queen would have his mate killed simply for being Alteran. Over the next few years, Thale gained a brother and a sister. Several years after his sister was born, when Thale was an adolescent, an Alteran scout ship discovered them while his father was off-world hunting. They were captured and taken to Paititi, where they lived for close to two years as little more than prisoners. When it became clear during a battle with the Wraith that Paititi was going to be destroyed, the city-ship was abandoned and everyone fled to Atlantis, which was having its own problems. As the last inhabited city-ship in the Pegasus Galaxy, Atlantis was the evacuation point back to Earth.

It was made clear that it would not be permissible for Thale and his siblings to give the Wraith a genetic foothold in another galaxy. Linia wanted to stay with them, but was not permitted to do so. She went through the 'gate quietly when her children's lives were threatened should she not do so. When there was just a skeleton crew left on Atlantis, the children were sent back to the planet they'd been born on. Several months later, during which time Thale was the caregiver for his two younger siblings, their father returned to the planet, having rejoined his hive when they had disappeared. He took them with him to the hive, where the two males began training.

Their sister was kept out of the way much of the time. Females had much different upbringings and status than males, but being a half-blood made her unfit for normal Wraith societal structure. When she was still young, their father was killed in the culling of a fairly advanced planet. Thale and his brother tried their best to be unobtrusive and still protect their sister. But when she reached maturity, a full-blooded male took an overt interest in her that she did not return. He felt she should do as he wanted because of her much lower status, and she was killed in an altercation between the two of them. Thale and his brother took revenge without seeking permission and were then banished from the hive.

The two brothers stayed together for a short time. Unlike Thale with his black hair and more Alteran-influenced features, his brother could pass for full Wraith. He left Thale behind to join another hive. Thale had not heard from his brother in the nearly ten thousand years since then and did not know if the other male still lived. By chance a few hundred years later, he ran into a few other Wraith hybrids, though all of them were descendants of humans and not Alterans. Being stronger mentally than any of them, Thale became the surrogate "Queen" of the group. Over the centuries, the group gained and lost members, doing their best to stay out of the way of hive-claimed planets. In that time, Thale learned to be completely secretive about his past. Even those who had only some Wraith DNA knew of and hated the Alterans.

"So you're the only one left from the original group?" Nycole asked when it became clear Thale had shared as much as he was going to.

Thale held out a hand to pull her up a boulder he had just scaled, nodding. He waited until she was beside him to answer verbally. "Yes. A few were killed, some died of old age. Few hybrids have the full regenerative power of a full blooded Wraith, so unlike their forebears, they do age. I do not have that restriction and am the oldest living, so far as I know. By quite a bit, now."

"Did _you_ ever have children?"

"No." He looked at her with an unidentifiable expression. "Because of the strength of my telepathic ability, any female I mated with would have to be… compatible in order for me to remain leader. I have met very few, and none of them were suited to me in other important ways."

"I'm sorry," Nycole said softly.

Thale shrugged dismissively, eyeballing the next part of the hill they were climbing. It was nearly vertical and did not have many trees or other plants to use as handholds. Next to him, Nycole unwound a section of the rope she'd brought along, tying a metal hook to the end. When she was satisfied that the knot would hold, she swung the rope expertly around, releasing it at the perfect angle to hook a tree thirty feet away where the ground leveled out enough to stand on. Tugging with the full weight of her body, Nycole made sure the rope and makeshift grappling hook would hold before shifting her hands to begin the climb. Thale stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.

"It will be faster if I climb up first and then pull you up."

Nycole nodded agreement and relinquished the rope to him. When they had both reached the higher elevation and she had retrieved and recoiled the rope, she asked why, if his group took in any they came across, there were not more of them.

"Despite the mixed nature of our blood, we are still affected by the Terror. Each new life is cherished when it comes, but not all live to adulthood. And then there are some who can pass for full-blooded Wraith. Almost all of them tend to join up with a hive once they reach puberty. Some of them come back to stay once they learn what they need to, but most of them… the ones that need to feed more regularly… do not. A few of the latter visit, keeping me appraised of what they can in honor of the family they still have here."

"Is that why you thought my hive was still hibernating?"

Thale nodded. "There are two males, one a half-blood and the other the son of a half-blood and a full Wraith, who live with that particular hive. I have not heard from either of them for a few decades, and since the last time was just before their hive was going into hibernation, I had assumed they were still in that state."

Nycole hummed thoughtfully and stopped walking. They had been hiking north for the past several minutes instead of simply climbing, and she thought they were close to her goal. Studying the steep drop on their right, she searched for the hidden treasure she was here to plunder. It took a few minutes, but eventually she spotted the fallen tree and the brush surrounding it that marked her goal. She attached the hook and rope to a nearby outcropping of rock, dropping the other end down where she needed to go. Once again, Thale held her back.

"Perhaps I should…"

"No," she interrupted, adding soothingly, "I've done this before." She gave him a lopsided grin as she looked him up and down. "Besides, I'm not sure the ledge will hold your weight."

Thale frowned at her. "Is that supposed to comfort me?"

With a sigh, Nycole took the backup rope he'd been carrying and threaded one end through her belt loops as a simplistic harness. She handed the rest of the coil to Thale.

"Better?"

He gave her a look that clearly said it wasn't by much.

"I'll need the knife," she requested.

There was no hesitation as Thale handed her a long blade, similar to the machete of Earth. Turning the dull tang side toward herself, Nycole clenched the blade of the knife between her teeth. As ready as she was going to get, she began easing herself down the side of the hill, traveling backwards to increase her safety. As much as Thale probably believed she was being reckless because she was angry with her father, Nycole would never purposefully put herself in danger. Danger to her meant danger to Ben, and she would _never_ willingly hurt the Wraith she was bound to.

She let the thought go and concentrated on her task. When she had reached the ledge where the fallen tree resided, she removed the blade from her mouth and began hacking strategically at the undergrowth surrounding the trunk of the dead tree. After ten minutes worth of work, the mental equivalent of a gasp reached her from her companion. He, like her, was very familiar with the basic structure of the small ship hidden underneath ten thousand years of straggling growth. The puddle jumper, as her father and the rest of the expedition called the small vessels, was heavily damaged but still recognizable.

How did you know that was there? It was much more in Thale's nature to use telepathy than to yell down to her. We have lived here three years and no one found it.

You weren't looking for it, Nycole responded as she continued to clear the brush that had grown over what was left of the Alteran vehicle. We came across a report that the ship crashed when it went too close to the atmosphere of this planet while trying to escape detection. Apparently, it wasn't worth the effort or the risk for the Alterans to try mounting a salvage operation. It took us nearly two months to locate.

That makes sense. But what made it worth it to you?

Give me a minute and I'll show you, Nycole replied.

She had finally managed to clear enough of the plants and debris away to expose the damage-created fissure she knew was in the side of the hull. Tucking the long blade into a handy slot built into her belt, she began to climb carefully, pulling herself into and through the crevice. Nycole went immediately to the spot behind what was left of the pilot's chair to retrieve the sturdy case wedged there, ignoring the few dusty bone and fabric fragments that were all that remained of the long since dead pilot. She took a minute to scavenge easily-pulled parts from the jumper, shoving them into the case.

After a bit of a struggle getting the case through the narrow exit, Nycole got herself out and onto the ground before looping the shoulder strap over her head so that it was securely attached to her. Climbing back up was a much faster affair than the trip down had been, Thale aiding in the speed of her ascent by steadily pulling on the rope tied around her waist. Nycole opened the case when she was once more standing at his side, pulling out the ZPM.

"This," she simply answered his earlier question.

Thale's eyes widened slightly at the sight of the power source, and Nycole realized too late that it might not have been the best idea to let anyone else know about it. Especially someone who could, no doubt, think of many ways to use it to help his own people.

Having no choice but to risk asking, she queried, "Is this going to make things more difficult?"

"No. Even if we possessed a device that was compatible with an Alteran power source, we could not risk using it. The threat of exposure would be too great."

Mentally breathing a sigh of relief, Nycole nodded and returned the ZPM to its case. They worked together to recoil the two ropes, setting off back down the hill. Companionable silence settled between them, both because they were each keeping their thoughts to themselves and because though the trek down was faster than the trip up, it was still risky at different interludes. They made it down without a problem and were halfway back to the settlement when Thale froze, his features paling.

"What is it?" Nycole immediately asked.

"One of the guards that watch the Ring just reported an activation," he responded. "It is a scouting party."

Nycole sucked in a breath, knowing what being found by the wrong group of Wraith could mean to Thale's people. Not only were they hybrids living with humans, but they were not under the protection of any hive.

"I have an idea," she said as one developed in her mind.

She allowed him to see it, and Thale inclined his head to her. "We must hurry. For this to work, we must reach the settlement before they do and then cut them off."

Nycole settled the shoulder strap of the case so that it would be snug against her. And then she started to run. Thale was keeping pace beside her within seconds.

_**To be continued…**_


	11. Chapter 11

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note**: No reviews at all? Ouch. Ah well, I love these characters, so the story will continue. This chapter is quite a bit shorter than other recent ones. Mostly so my other stories don't have to wait longer for this chapter to be finished in order to get updated.

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"What?"

The one word question was out of John's mouth the second after Ronon stiffened. The Satedan had been standing in the open doorway to the small house they were occupying for hours now, watching the Wraith go about their activities outside. His eyes had narrowed any time one of them had gotten within twenty feet of the building, but this was the first time he'd straightened from his aggressive slouch.

"Not sure," Ronon replied. "They all suddenly stopped what they were doing and most have now headed inside their houses."

John frowned and joined the taller man in looking out at the rest of the settlement. There were a lot less of the Wraith milling about, and those that were outside were quiet… unnaturally so. For a moment he considered that the approaching dusk had ended their day, but something didn't feel right about that assumption. John turned to Teyla, who had moved to one of the windows to see what her teammates were looking at.

"Can you sense anything?"

Teyla frowned slightly. "I will try again. Earlier I could not sense much from them. There is something different about their minds."

"I don't think it's just their minds," John commented, his eyes focused on a male fifty feet away whose short hair appeared to be an extremely pale brown in color. "Most of them don't look like any Wraith I've ever seen. Thale has black hair, just for starters."

"They're abominations," Ronon bit out.

"Huh?"

"They have mixed blood… human and Wraith," Ronon answered John's monosyllabic confusion. "Saw one once when I was a Runner. The ones chasing me killed it."

"I did not know it was possible for a human and a Wraith to procreate," Teyla said quietly.

John shrugged. "Makes sense to me. If they're genetically similar enough for gene therapy to make them human, they have to be biologically compatible."

A disgusted growl rolled from Ronon's throat.

John ignored him and glanced questioningly at Teyla, who dipped her head, her eyes closing in concentration. Several seconds later, she was shaking her head and opening her eyes to look at him with a slight frown.

"They are worried, afraid," Teyla reported. "I cannot get any more than that."

The Earth-born man looked outside again. Some of the Wraith had moved to the open space in the center of the settlement, others coming out to join them as he and his team members watched. A few of the Wraith were holding things. Some had weapons; others carried what looked like clothes of the typical Wraith design, black leather and a lot of it. Which he thought was odd, since few of the Wraith here actually dressed that way.

John frowned. "Maybe we should go over there and ask what's going on."

"I believe it is our only option," Teyla agreed, ignoring Ronon's derisive snort.

Teyla followed when John left the house. He glanced back at Ronon.

"You coming?"

Ronon shrugged but did start following when John continued on his way. Some of the Wraith turned to watch them as they approached, many of them with wary expressions.

"Mind if we ask what's going on?" John asked as they came within earshot of the group, not really aiming his question at one particular individual since Thale was not among them.

The two Wraith closest to them shared a look before one of them said, "A scouting party has come through the Ring. Your companion has a plan to attempt to deal with them without violence."

John's brow furrowed, at first because he wasn't sure who his 'companion' was… he realized after a moment that it had to be Nycole… and then because he was confused. "Why without violence?"

"If the scouting party does not report back, the hive will send a ship to discover what has gone wrong," the same Wraith spoke again. "We would have to abandon this planet much sooner, and leaving most of our possessions behind would be necessary."

John nodded understanding, tensing slightly when an invisible but strong ripple seemed to flow through the group. He opened his mouth, not sure what he was going to ask, but closed it again when he spotted two figures running into the center of the settlement. Thale and Nycole.

x FNM x

Nycole spotted her father and his two teammates standing on the far edge of the group of Wraith as she and Thale approached. She ignored them. Not only was she still mad at her father for not trusting her, but she was sure that if she attempted to explain what she was about to do, he'd fight her on it. And she didn't have time for that.

Taking mental direction from Thale, Nycole moved closer to a group of females holding the articles of clothing she would need to help her pull this off. Swallowing her trepidation at being undressed and then re-clothed in front of this many eyes, Nycole nodded to the closest woman.

x FNM x

John's eyes widened when a few of the Wraith began stripping the clothes from his daughter… luckily they left her undergarments on… and then paled when the full extent of the scars on her body became visible. He didn't have much time to further contemplate the old wounds, however, as they began dressing her in the leather of a Wraith uniform moments later. Nycole was covered again in little more than a minute. One of the males close to her strapped a weapon holster around her waist, a smaller version of the Wraith stunner sitting conveniently on her hip. The last part of her makeover involved a couple of the females undoing her ponytail and combing through her hair quickly with their nails.

Nycole turned and looked directly at him then. "Don't react."

He recognized the short phrase as an order and a warning, and frowned again. This time at the odd sight of all of the Wraith around them lowering their heads as if in prayer. All except Thale, who had his hands cupping Nycole's head, a look of concentration on his face. Despite Nycole's words, he immediately pulled his gun when she staggered.

x FNM x

Suddenly being connected to so many minds made Nycole dizzy for a moment. It didn't help that the group had no Queen to act as a mental anchor. Now that she was in on the 'hive' wavelength, Nycole couldn't help feeling impressed. For all of them… at least those with enough Wraith DNA to do so… to maintain the connection without a Queen was extremely difficult, and because most of them were hybrids, it was even more so for them. If there had been too many more of them, she wasn't sure she would have been able to handle being part of it.

It reminded her of when she had first been made a part of Ben's hive, before the Bond. The Queen had still been recovering when it had happened, and the sheer pressure of so many other psyches touching hers at the same time had caused Nycole to blackout. Oddly, the difficulty she'd faced then seemed to have made her more capable of navigating telepathically than most humans, and it had helped her immensely when the Bond had been initiated.

A ripple of unease and anger from the Wraith closest to her father snapped her out of her introspection. Shrugging off Thale's steadying hand, Nycole turned toward the Atlantis team. She picked up the Alteran bag from where she had dropped it, reaching John in several long strides.

"I'm fine," she told her father, staring at him pointedly until he holstered his weapon. "If the three of you want to come and observe, you can, but you have to stay back when you're told to do so. This won't work if you're seen."

"What are you going to do?" Teyla asked.

Nycole glanced back at Thale, communicating silently with him to get his permission to share what she could. "We're going to convince the scouting party that there is nothing of value on this planet and to leave without any conflict."

"How are you going to do that?" John responded.

"By making them believe this planet is already claimed by another hive," Nycole answered, touching the tattoo below her eye with obvious meaning. "We don't have any more time for this, we need to intercept them. Here."

She thrust the bag at him. John took it, obviously more out of instinct than anything. He reached for the closure on the bag, but Nycole stopped him with a hand on his.

"Don't," she warned him. "Put it in the house and then catch up."

He opened his mouth, but she held up a quelling hand and swiveled on her heel, stalking away with six of the Wraith following.

x FNM x

Hoping that doing what she'd told him to would go at least part of the way to making her less angry with him, John took the bag Nycole had given him and ran for the structure he'd left so short a time ago. He considered just leaving the bag inside the doorway, but her reaction to him almost opening the bag in front of everyone had his curious. Stepping inside and out of sight, John quickly looked in the bag.

He sucked in a breath when he saw the ZPM nestled among what looked like spare parts from a jumper. While he'd been busy worrying about how their mission had been sidetracked, Nycole had gone ahead and completed it. And from what she'd told them of its location, he knew it couldn't have been too easy. He looked up to see Teyla and Ronon watching him. John tossed the case to Ronon.

"You two stay here with that."

"Sheppard," Ronon tried to argue.

John cut him a glare and headed out, jogging in the direction he'd seen Nycole leave with her entourage of Wraith. They were a couple miles away when he caught up. Nycole looked at him with both eyebrows raised when he maneuvered to walk next to her.

"Thank you," he said quietly.

Nycole nodded once and turned her attention ahead again. John couldn't help noticing how serious and intent she looked… like Elizabeth going into a negotiation she knew would be difficult. He almost smiled at the thought but didn't want to be a distraction. A few minutes later, Nycole stopped walking, John falling back with her automatically.

"Wait here," Nycole told him.

John glanced around. "There's no cover here."

"The grass will have to do. They should be too focused on us to bother with you. _Do not_ interfere, no matter what."

John huffed. "I'm not going to stay out of the fight if something goes wrong."

Nycole laughed lightly. "Alright. But only if I call you."

He grudgingly agreed and watched her walk over to where the Wraith were waiting. When Nycole looked back at him with a frown, John moved into a sniper's low prone position. His vision was mostly obscured by the tall grass, but he could still see Nycole and the Wraith from the center of her back and up. Thale and another obvious hybrid stood on either side of her, though a step behind, while the four that John thought looked full-blooded took flanking positions, two on either side. Thale and other one close to Nycole bore no weapons while the other four had the same small weapon as Nycole strapped to their hips. They were also carrying the full size Wraith stunners. John just hoped the weapons wouldn't be needed.

_**To be continued…**_


	12. Chapter 12

**Reading Key**: Thoughts and emphasis are in _italics_. Telepathic conversation is underlined.

Continuity info, etc. can be found at the top of chapter one, disclaimer is at the bottom of chapter one.

**Author's Note**: Little note about a phrase used in this chapter: "duty born" is my name for the cloned Wraith, the ones that wear the face masks.

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A certain level of excitement ran through him as he headed toward the unexpected feeling of other Wraith. This assignment had been meant as a punishment. One of many his Queen had set for him and others of his battleship for their loss of a planet that had been the territory of their hive for thousands of years. It was her right, of course, to send him wherever she saw fit, but he had thought this mission a waste of time and effort. Because of the atmospheric conditions, even if humans had begun living here, there would be no effective way to cull them.

He had never imagined he would find other Wraith living here. He could not tell exactly how many there were… his talents lie more with strategy and battle than telepathy and he was accompanied only by a squad of duty born who had even less skill in that area than he… but there had to be at least a few dozen. And without a Queen.

_That_ kind of presence even he would have felt. Perhaps they were from a ship that had crashed on the planet. Or they could be outcasts, banished from their original hives and grouping together to survive. In either case, they _were_ in need of a Queen, a hive. His Queen would be most pleased with him if he brought back warriors to add to their hive. Their numbers were not as great as many of the neighboring hives, and the duty born far outnumbered the natural. If even half the ones here were naturally born Wraith, it would be a great boon to their hive. Greater than any in centuries.

His thoughts faltered as he came to an occupied clearing, though his steps did not. Outwardly, he remained vigilant and focused on the figures before him, but inside his hopes had died with every step in their direction. Though the four armed guards… two on either side… were naturally born Wraith warriors, the central figure was a human female. Human! And the two closer to her, one on either side and slightly back in positions of deference, were abominations. Not only that, but the human bore the mark of a Queen. Whatever the group was that resided on this planet, they were not hive-less renegades. But what _was_ their purpose in being here?

Quickly dismissing the two abominations… they were unarmed and likely weak… he fought his automatic urge to talk to the other Wraith. Unlike the human, none of them bore marks. Which meant they did not have the rank or authority to answer his questions. He had no choice but to address the human. His own hive had some worshippers that lived on the hive ship, but he spent little to no time around them. Speaking to a human as something approaching an equal made his gut twist unpleasantly.

She was watching him, but did not appear nervous or hostile in any way.

He dipped his head slightly in greeting, swallowing a disgusted snarl. "Has your Queen claimed this planet?"

"Temporarily," she confirmed. "Has your hive decided to annex it? We believed it to be of no use to another hive."

He tilted his head. "How is it of use to yours?"

She shook hers. "It is just a place."

His eyes drifted to the two abominations, and his lip curled. "What _are_ you doing here? We may not have claimed the planet, but it is within our territory. And why is a human in charge? Has your Queen become so weak as to rely on one such as you to command so many?"

She did not react to his jabs as he had expected; humans were such emotional creatures that they were usually exceedingly quick to anger or fear or whatever other reaction one was looking to provoke. And although she straightened even more and her mouth thinned briefly, her voice remained even as she answered him.

"My Queen is as strong as any. I am not in charge, merely watching over things until the one with whom I share a bond returns. He is delivering a report to the Queen and should return in a few days."

His intrigue with the situation increased tenfold at her words. There had been a bonded pair within his hive thousands of years ago, but he had been young at the time and barely remembered the two. The bond had always been a rare thing, but since the Terror it had become nearly unheard of. He looked at her with new eyes, taking in all the details he had dismissed before because of her species.

"He shares a bond with you and yet leaves you here?"

His implied insult finally got more of a reaction out of her. Her blue-green eyes narrowed, shooting fire at him, as her hand drifted to the weapon at her side, resting there. The duty born in formation behind him tensed at the perceived threat, but he signaled them to remain passive.

"We have not been visited in decades," she shot back. "And I am far from unguarded."

He stretched out his senses as much as he could, realizing as he did so that there were many more beings in the woods around them. Whether full Wraith or something else, it was likely that they were all armed and ready to die to protect the human who had been marked by their Queen. He cast aside any plans of attack and concentrated instead on what they were doing here.

"That still does not explain…"

"I am needed here," she interrupted. "I act as midwife to our," her lips pulled back from her teeth in a clear expression of distaste, "subjects."

Her eyes had drifted to the abomination on her right, and he had to struggle to outwardly conceal his surprise at the implication. Still, he had to ask, "You are purposefully breeding these _things_?"

She waved a dismissive hand. "We control their numbers. My Queen is conducting experiments to see if she can breed a cure to the Terror using those of mixed blood."

For a brief moment, everything within him stilled, and his eyes widened. That such a thing might be possible…

"Have you been successful?" he demanded when he found his voice; it did not even bother him that it came out tremulous. This was too important for his pride to get in the way.

She was quick to shake her head. "Not yet. But the tests of their blood have shown some promise."

"Will your Queen share the data?"

"It is not my place to say."

Knowing that threatening or hurting her would accomplish nothing… it would in fact make even the slight chance of cooperation from the other hive completely disappear… he inclined his head in frustrated acknowledgment. "I will share this information with my Queen and ask for her permission to return when your master is available."

Her eyes narrowed again, this time at his intentional slight on her part of the bond… making her sound like a servant instead of something approaching an equal… but she simply nodded curtly.

x FNM x

Thale waited a full minute after the visiting Wraith had left the clearing… back in the direction of the Ring… before stepping forward to stand beside Nycole. She was still staring after the departed group, her eyes narrowed in thought or concentration; he couldn't be sure which since she was actively blocking her mind. It probably had not been necessary considering the lack of that kind of ability in the Wraith they had been deceiving, but it had been better to put forth the extra effort than to risk what could have happened if she had not.

"This explains why we did not inhabit this planet when you came here in your own time," he told her quietly when she finally turned toward him.

His fellow Wraith had stepped back to allow them to go over what had happened, and her father was approaching them cautiously. Sheppard had stood as soon as Thale had broken his deferential position, though he'd hesitated before coming to join them. He was close enough to catch what Thale had said, however.

"What do you mean?" Sheppard asked, shifting the shoulder strap of his weapon so that it was no longer at the ready and resting his forearms on it casually.

Thale turned to him. "If Nycole had not been here, representing a Queen and her interest in the Wraith on this planet, we would have had to kill the scouting party. Doing so would have protected us, saved us from immediate discovery, but it also would have meant leaving here in a hurry. When the scouting party did not report back, a larger, more heavily armed one would have been sent to discover their fate. Nycole has not only given us days more in which to ready ourselves to leave, but her story about our purpose has given the other Wraith something to think about. Any mixed blood Wraith they come across from now on will not be killed on sight, but taken and studied. It is not a free pass by any means, but it opens up possibilities that did not before exist."

"I'm not sure I trust him to wait more than a day to come back," Nycole spoke before Sheppard could. "And it's even more likely that if his Queen believes the story, she will send someone more suited to the purpose to question us."

"Perhaps," Thale acknowledged. "But it does not change our gratitude for the effort."

Nycole shook her head. "You need the extra time. If… if Ben was here, we could convince anyone they might send that we're telling the truth."

Thale was surprised, despite the telepathic strength he had noticed in her from the beginning. "You could?"

She nodded and turned her gaze on her father, who blinked. It only took him a few seconds to realize what she was asking. A pained grimace took over his features.

"There's no way."

"Dad…"

Sheppard heaved a sigh, shaking his head. "We can try, but I sincerely doubt your mother is going to go for this."

"Trying is all I ask," Nycole responded quietly.

Thale lifted his head to judge the time. It was growing darker. They did not have time to go back to the settlement and share the news _and_ then go to the Ring to contact Atlantis before the time his people usually slept. He shared this observation with Nycole, who had finally reopened her mind.

Take my father to the Ring. I will go back and tell everyone what happened, she responded.

He cautioned her, You will have to share it aloud. Not everyone in the settlement can communicate this way.

I would have had to anyway. Teyla and Ronon will want to know what happened as well, and I'd rather only tell it once.

Thale nodded understanding and turned to Sheppard. The dark haired man was watching them with suspicion, and Thale wondered if Sheppard was sensitive to telepathic communication. It would explain why Nycole was so talented if she had already been genetically predisposed to it before she had joined her hive.

"Come," he said to the other male. "I will take you to the Ring to contact Atlantis."

Sheppard frowned at Nycole, "You're not coming?"

"It's getting late," she answered indirectly. "The rest of the settlement needs to know what happened so they can start preparing for the next few days."

"You'll tell Teyla and Ronon where I've gone?"

"Of course."

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Rodney was several hours into a mandatory twenty-four hour quarantine. He was bored. Out. Of. His. Mind.

If he'd had his laptop or his notes, it would have been a much different story. But no. Physical items had to have their own separate quarantine and could only be retrieved once their owner was completely cleared. In other words, he'd only have it back an hour before he was due to travel to see Jeannie. Rodney ignored the nervous fluttering in his gut at the thought and went back to pacing. It was the closest thing to exercise he ever willingly did, though he didn't like to think of it that way. It was just something for his body to do while his mind was otherwise occupied.

After counting how many paces it took to get from one end of the room to the other, finding its square root to the nearest thousandth, and mentally comparing the room to his room in Atlantis, Rodney sighed and let his mind wander to another galaxy. What was the team doing? Had they gotten to the ZedPM yet? Did it have more or less power than the one he'd brought to Stargate Command? More or less than the one currently powering Atlantis?

How late was it on the planet the team was on? Had they set up camp? Were they eating MREs? At least he'd gotten real, fresh food as part of being stuck here. He was going to have to restock his chocolate supply while he was on Earth. Did the team miss him, or was Nycole's limited scientific knowledge enough to get them by without him?

Rodney huffed. He _wasn't_ replaceable. And certainly not by her. How many scrapes had _his_ knowledge and talents gotten them out of? Having something new to count, Rodney plopped down on the edge of the twin-sized bed with its scratchy single blanket and military corners and began mentally ticking off missions.

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"You were surprised by what Nycole implied she could do," John observed as he and Thale trekked to the 'gate. "Is what she can do rare?"

Thale did not answer for long minutes, his facial expression not altering in the slightest. The black-haired half-Wraith seemed to always be internally amused about something. It reminded John of the Wraith he'd escaped from Kolya with. John was about to give up on getting a response when the hybrid male spoke. He should have known better. After all, how many Wraith had they dealt with who had refused to show any emotion aside from anger?

"Her ability is rare for a human," Thale confirmed. "But it is the implied skill of the one with whom she shares a bond that surprised me. I can accomplish what she intends, but because it is physically obvious that I am of mixed blood, it would not matter; the Wraith who came here would not listen. For someone who has that amount of talent to tie themselves to a human… I have never heard of such a thing happening, even before the bond became as rare a thing as it is now. It will be a great loss to his hive when they die."

Despite the fact that Thale's words showed him that the consequences of the bond did indeed mean as much to Ben as Nycole had told them… Thale had no reason to lie… John did not feel any better about it. Instead, he felt worse. What was Ben getting out of it that made the ramifications worth it?

"And this 'Terror' she referenced?" John knew from the way Nycole had said it, and the way the Wraith had reacted, that it was something important enough to be deserving of a capital letter at the beginning of the single word.

Sure enough, Thale stiffened and all emotion drained from his face. "We do not speak of it to those who do not know. If Nycole and Ben have not told you, it is not my place to do so."

John scowled. For a moment, considering how open Thale had been thus far, he had hoped that he would learn even more about the Wraith. Anything that _they_ called the Terror had to be pretty horrible. And learning more about them would have been compensation for how wrong this mission had gone. His conscience gave him a twinge, reminding him that they already had what they'd come for. They were just going to be a little delayed in getting it back to Atlantis. It wasn't the worse thing that had ever happened on a mission.

Now he just needed to find a way to convince Elizabeth of that. Once she was on his side, no one would be able to out-argue the point.

The rest of their journey was accomplished in silence and at a pace that was as close to a jog as it could be without it no longer being walking. Thale appeared as comfortable with a lack of conversation as all the other Wraith John had been near. John was lost in thoughts of Elizabeth. How much they relied on each other, worried about each other… If this whole situation with Nycole wound up meaning one of them would lose their jobs, would whoever stayed really be at his or her best without the other?

He knew Elizabeth would be fine, she was the most strong-willed person he'd ever met, and she'd held precarious diplomatic talks together against seemingly impossible odds. But he also felt it was safe to assume she'd have some trouble adjusting to whoever his replacement might be. Despite Caldwell's interest in her, the man butted heads with her in nearly every situation. John was sure that if Caldwell were made military head of Atlantis, it wouldn't be more than a week before he tried to take over completely. He didn't have the respect for Elizabeth that John had.

John, on the other hand, wouldn't want the job without her there with him. As much as he loved Atlantis, considered it his only true home, the job without her would be just that… a job. Despite his relative lack of experience in a position of authority and the promotion he was sure she'd finagled for him, even with a bit of a shaky start, Elizabeth had always treated him with respect. Listened to him and considered his opinion even when she was dead set against it. No one had ever given him that consideration before… or since.

But it was more than that. If one of them were fired, they wouldn't see each other. Maybe ever again. And even though she wasn't letting them be as friendly as they had been, it was still important to him to be able to see her every day. He couldn't imagine going back to the life he'd had before… if they didn't kick him out of the military completely… and if the roles were reversed, being in Atlantis with so many memories of her, expecting her to be in her office or at a briefing; it would destroy him a piece at a time when she wasn't.

Recognizing the clearing where the Stargate was located, John shook himself out of his morose thoughts. He hesitated when he and Thale approached the DHD. Thale politely turned away without being asked, and John dialed Atlantis. He didn't send through his IDC on the off chance that Thale was not as trustworthy as he seemed. He waited until five seconds after the surface of the wormhole stabilized before speaking into his radio, asking Chuck to get Elizabeth.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Elizabeth's voice appeared less than a minute later.

"Dr. Weir," John greeted, keeping things professional despite the personal thoughts he'd been having just moments before.

He filled her in on the bare facts of what had happened, and what Nycole wanted.

Elizabeth's immediate response was, "Should I send Lorne and a couple more teams to get you out?"

John laughed awkwardly. "Their leader is standing right next to me."

There was silence from Elizabeth's end.

Thale held out a hand. "May I?"

Not really seeing any other option, John handed the radio over with a shrug.

"I understand your concern for your people, Doctor Weir," Thale said into the device. "And I think you may be able to understand my concern for the welfare of mine. Things will move more expediently for both parties if the one you call Ben is allowed to come here and assist us. My people will be able to leave this planet more quickly, thus enabling your people to be returned to you even sooner."

"Forgive me for being blunt," Elizabeth replied, "but everything seems to be in your favor. What's to stop you from taking my people with you when you go?"

Some of the internally-amused expression left Thale's face, and John's eyebrows scrunched together. He'd swear Thale was actually hurt by Elizabeth's caution.

"Since you are being honest with me, I will extend the same courtesy. The only people of yours we would be interested in are Nycole and Ben, and I know Nycole would not be happy away from her family. If it would make you feel safe enough to send Ben, you are welcome to send as many teams as you would like, with the understanding that we will defend ourselves if necessary. As to what is in it for you, if things go well, I will tell you where to find another Alteran power source."

John's eyes widened at the thought of having even more to show from this mission than they'd originally thought, but Elizabeth had latched on to another part of what Thale said.

"How do you know that name for them?"

Thale's lip curled slightly, but he answered calmly, "I am old enough to have been here before they were called Ancients or Ancestors, Doctor Weir. The Wraith know what they called themselves but believe in the power of names, and so do not use it often."

"I see." There was an obvious pause before she continued speaking. "It will take an hour to get my people ready. Will you be waiting at the 'gate to lead them to your settlement?"

"I need to return there as soon as possible. Ben will be able to lead your teams straight to us through his bond with Nycole."

"Very well. I hope your plan goes smoothly, for both our sakes. Atlantis out."

Taking the radio back when Thale held it out to him, John watched distractedly as the blue shimmery light vanished from inside the circle of the Stargate. It seemed like Elizabeth had given in much too easily. How many teams would she be sending through? All of them? John laughed internally at the thought and turned to follow Thale back to the settlement.

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Nycole watched Teyla and Ronon walk away and sighed. After she had updated the members of the settlement and the half of her father's team that was in attendance, they had been invited by one of the humans to partake of the evening meal. Ronon had opened his mouth, no doubt to yell and insult the woman, but Teyla had set a restraining hand on his arm and politely declined. Nycole knew they had their reasons… and very good ones… to hate the Wraith, but she didn't know how anyone could turn down fresh food in favor of MREs.

Frowning when she felt the attention of someone nearby focus on Ronon, Nycole glanced around. She zeroed in on a young female who obviously had some Wraith blood. The hybrid was taking hesitant steps in the direction Ronon and Teyla had just gone. Nycole moved quickly to intercept her, startling the other young woman into coming to a stop in front of her.

"I wouldn't encourage approaching him," Nycole warned the young female. "He was a Runner for seven years."

The mixed-blood Wraith's eyes widened and she bobbed her head once in acknowledgment. A second later her gaze fastened on the tattoo on Nycole's neck.

"You are Satedan, too?"

"No," Nycole shook her head. "But I was raised with some of them. Why?"

The female darted a glance to a group of males about twenty feet away and then back to Nycole. "My mother was half Satedan. When I was young she promised to teach me the traditional betrothal dance, but she died before I was old enough. Do you know it?"

In Earth terms, the dance she was asking about had less to do with betrothal and more to do with seduction. Traditionally, it was danced for the man a young woman was interested in marrying in the hope that it would stir his passions enough for him to pursue her with thoughts of immediate marriage instead of a long courtship. Despite the fact that she had never had any intention of using it on the Satedans she'd grown up with, Nycole _did_ know the dance since it had been part of her training when she'd lived with them. She just wasn't sure she knew it well enough to teach it. She conveyed this to the young woman nonverbally.

"Could you just show me?" Nycole was asked in response. "I am good at learning by seeing."

Because Nycole had opened herself to the common telepathic 'wavelength' used by the group, she could feel how much the young female wanted this, how deeply in love with one of the young males she was. And Nycole would certainly be the only one doing anything to stay on the good side of Thale's people. So why not do a favor for someone who had the potential to be a future friend and ally?

"Alright," Nycole conceded. "But I'll need music."

She was surprised when her new 'friend' grabbed her hand excitedly and began pulling her toward one of the nearby houses.

"Come meet my father first."

x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x FNM x

John was tired when he and Thale returned to the settlement. The dark-haired Wraith had set a blistering pace back, though John could hardly blame him when considering the circumstances. John had made a comment about making it back before full dark, but Thale informed him that the planet had an unusual tilt to it's axis that caused the region around the 'gate to never get darker than deep dusk. Despite the danger of discovery, it was why the settlement was so close to the 'gate, relatively. He and Thale split up as soon as they were within the boundaries, Thale headed for a group of Wraith that seemed to be waiting for him and John going in the direction of the small house his team had been given.

Ronon was once more standing in the doorway and glaring out. He moved out of the way only when John had to pause before stepping up into the structure. He filled them in on what little he actually knew about what Elizabeth was going to do. It was only after he was done with the short tale that he realized Nycole was once more missing.

"Where's Nycole?" John asked Teyla; he was too tired to deal with Ronon's mood swings.

"We were offered a fresh meal," the Athosian answered. "Nycole accepted, and we have not seen her since."

John ran a hand over his hair, wondering if he should go look for her, at least to let her know that Ben would be coming. But then, she probably already knew now that she had this connection to Thale's "hive."

"They're probably making her their Queen," he heard Ronon grumble.

John rolled his eyes, even though there was an unsettled fear in the pit of his stomach that his daughter would be happier here than she was in Atlantis. As strange and impossible as it seemed, human and Wraith lived together harmoniously. More than that, in some cases. He wondered for a moment if any of them shared the same type of bond Nycole and Ben did. He didn't know, though, if their mixed genetic heritage would make it impossible.

His head jerked sharply to look out the still-open door when the Satedan made an odd choking noise. John hurried to the doorway. At first he didn't see anything that he thought could have caught Ronon's attention. Then he noticed Thale standing with a small group, talking and gesturing with his hands. It took John longer than it should have to realize Nycole was part of the group. She had changed again, standing now in a dress with long sleeves and a full skirt that was somewhere between beige and tan in color. It was apparently made from the same material as Thale's tunic, a common fabric he'd seen many of the settlement wearing. The thought crossed his mind that they probably made it themselves.

It disturbed him how much she looked like she belonged with the group. Which is probably what had Ronon riled up… _this_ time. This whole mission was going to completely undo what little progress Nycole saving his life had done during the last one. John had hoped they'd be able to get along, or at least put up with each other without verbal or physical altercations, but it seemed less and less likely that would happen. Nycole didn't exactly get along with Rodney either, often bristling when he insulted her intelligence, and she and Teyla seemed to slightly respect each other but nothing more. It hurt that he would have to divide his time between his team and his daughter, but it seemed it would be the best thing for everyone not to force them into spending time with each other. The thought made his tiredness feel more like intense exhaustion.

John pulled himself from his thoughts when the group started moving toward a bonfire someone had started. He jolted in surprise when he heard the distant sound of a drum and, moments later, what sounded like a flute. Glancing next to him, he saw Ronon's frown deepen, while Teyla looked intrigued. John left the structure once more, this time without a word, and followed the sounds of music. Teyla and Ronon trailed behind him.

x FNM x

Nycole was mentally directing the two musicians to play a bit faster and in a pulsing rhythm when the Atlantis flagship team joined the circle around the bonfire. Thale had already filled her in on what had happened at the Ring, so she didn't feel the need to break from her current activity to go and speak with her father. If she did, he was sure to demand an explanation, and she was tired of having to explain everything she did. It was a necessary evil given her extraordinary circumstances, but that didn't make it any less wearing.

Pushing the thoughts to the back of her mind for later, Nycole turned to where the young female hybrid was standing with her father, who like her dead mother was also half-Wraith. It was he who had given Nycole the dress she now wore. His mate had danced for him once, and he knew the movements could get more than a little suggestive when not downplayed by proper attire. He had been grateful to her for being willing to do this favor for his daughter and insisted the dress was a gift in return, but Nycole had also sensed a deep sadness in him that she knew he felt at any reminder of his dead mate.

The music changed tempo to what she had requested, and Nycole let her mind go back to the first time she had seen the dance performed. She and Evan had been practicing tracking in the woods around the settlement on Prizax, and they had accidentally stumbled across a woman, whose name had been Kari if she remembered correctly, dancing for Arkin. They hadn't known then what the dance meant… and it wasn't until Nycole learned it herself after Evan's death that she knew the way the dance had ended meant Arkin had rejected Kari… but it had an intimate enough feel that they had snuck away without letting the two Satedans know they'd been watching.

Nycole had asked Evan later if there were similar dances on Earth. He had told her that to him it looked like a mixture of belly dancing and flamenco with a bit of martial arts thrown in… the martial arts made sense given the rougher nature of Satedan history; everyone was expected to be strong, not just the men. She hadn't really known what the two dance terms meant, but it had been enough of a connection to Earth that she had eagerly accepted when she had later been given the chance to learn the Satedan tradition.

It was only after she and the hive had taken back Atlantis that she had been able to go into the archives and find footage of the Earth styles. Dance had been a secret passion of hers for years by then, though the few styles she knew (even to this day) were limited to ones from the Pegasus Galaxy. The archives had provided video and photographic examples but not instructions. She preferred free form anyway, just letting the music move her.

Ignoring the multitude of other eyes watching her, Nycole led the part-Satedan hybrid to a better spot so she would be able to see the full performance. The girl thanked her once more and bowed, dipping her head and shoulders in a gesture of deep respect. Unused to being looked at without any negative expectations from anyone aside from Evan and Ben… it felt, somehow, like an eternity since they'd left the hive… Nycole ignored the gesture and walked a few feet away to take a starting position.

The dance started out slower than it would become, though she still kept time to the music with the sway of her hips and the movement of her feet, bare beneath the hem of the long skirt. Her movements were fairly simple, designed to show off the shape of her body. Nycole felt self-conscious lifting her hair away from her neck when the time came, exposing her scars starkly in the shadow-deepening light of the bonfire, so she closed her eyes and simply concentrated on undulating to the beat of her accompaniment.

The motion of her body changed slowly, become a mix of more suggestive hip rolls and swaying along with a style that was meant to show off her grace and strength. To put off the next stage of the dance, Nycole began rotations of the current portion around the bonfire. This next stage would be the challenging part. Choosing a male counterpart to be the seduce-ee.

Using her father as the focus of the dance would be beyond inappropriate. Thale might take it the wrong way, especially since he knew why the young female that was a member of his group had asked her to perform it. And Nycole certainly wasn't going to dance it for someone she didn't know. For a moment, her gaze strayed to Ronon… surely the fact that he hated her would make it safe… but he was watching her with an intensity that made a little voice in her head say it was a _very_ bad idea.

Just as she was considering risking the younger woman's embarrassment by using her 'student' as the focus of the final part of the dance, the most familiar presence in her head grew exponentially stronger. A smile quirked her lips as she added a few more rotations around the fire to give Evan the chance to lead Ben closer to them. She warned Ben through their private connection of what she was going to do. He was amused, but agreed without comment to be her 'intended.'

Nycole left the immediate area around the fire to dance closer to her father and his team as Evan and Ben joined them. She knew from Ben that the three teams who had accompanied them through the 'gate were in position near the settlement, close enough to come to the rescue if needed and far enough away not to have direct contact with the hybrids. Making beckoning motions to the full-blooded Wraith she was bonded to, she waited until he strode forward before backing up to keep them near the fire, close to the young woman who was trying to learn from her. Nycole could feel the attention paid the dance increase, especially among the females watching.

She almost faltered when she realized it was because of Ben. In all the time the bond had existed, they had never been in the company of a female who might take an interest in Ben. Marion was too scared of the Wraith to see Ben as a man (as were all of the women in Atlantis they'd had contact with), and the only female Wraith they'd spent any significant time near had been Ben's Queen, a blood relation. But there were many more females in Thale's encampment than there were in the entirety of most hives.

Despite the fact that she had lost everyone else in her life, Nycole had thought because of the bond that she would never lose him… that she _couldn't_ lose him. But because of what Thale had told her about the mate bond, she knew now that it wasn't true. And what right did she have to refuse him that opportunity? To find someone to share his life with… to be able to live the _full length_ of his life, or at least more of it than her human lifespan would allow. She had a new fear to live with now, one she would have to keep hidden from him. She would never guilt him into making the choice to stay with her, but neither would she make it easier for him to leave her by acknowledging the possibility to him.

Knowing she couldn't keep her thoughts from him too much longer without making him suspicious, Nycole shoved the worries to the back of her mind and threw her full attention back into her activity. When she began to grow tired from the strenuous dance, Nycole communicated to the young female what the male should do, Ben listening in. She then separately assured him that he could choose how to bring an end to her demonstration. The traditional kiss wasn't something that was within the parameters of their bond.

The next time she drew close to his front, he caught at her waist with one arm, catching her mid turn so that she twirled into him. Raising his right hand, he cupped the left side of her face gently, his thumb positioned just so over the mark below her eye. They both stared for long moments, warmth but little else flowing over their personal connection. Whatever it was they were each feeling, they were keeping it to themselves.

Severing the spell by breaking their eye contact, Ben leaned in slightly to nuzzle her forehead with the skin just beside his mouth and moved his hand from her face to cup the back of her head. It was the closest thing to a kiss that had ever happened between them, and it made Nycole shiver. When Ben eased her head down so he could tuck it under his chin, she wrapped her arms loosely around his waist signaling the end of the dance. Well, a much more subdued and viewer-friendly end. The dance was, in actuality, usually performed in private.

The music trailed off and polite applause arose from most of those gathered around. Nycole was surprised at the overt display (overt for Wraith at least) until her eyes landed on Thale. The encampment's head was leading the clapping with a smile. Her attention was diverted by the advance of the female she'd been doing this for in the first place. The younger woman's gaze was shy and something approaching admiring as she glanced at Nycole's dance partner. A surge of almost painful possessiveness swept through Nycole and before she fully realized what she was doing, she had moved to stand between the male she was bonded to and the young female in front of them.

The young woman immediately sensed Nycole's tension, halting in her tracks, her eyes widening before a calm expression fell over her face. "Thank you for showing me. It meant more than you could know."

She dipped her head and shoulders deeper this time than she had previously. And then she was gone, joining her father in one of the straggling groups nearby. Nycole's stiff posture didn't ease until Ben's heavy hand gripped her shoulder.

"Relax," he commanded gruffly.

Nycole narrowed her eyes at the amusement in his tone, gratified when it was Ben's turn to tense up as Thale approached them. He was always the one that was so sure about everything; it was almost amusing to see him wary. If it had been in a less friendly situation, of course, it would have scared her as little else could.

The hybrid male thanked her for her kindness to one of his people before turning his attention on Ben. His gaze focused first on the tattoo adorning the side of the other male's face before moving to his eyes.

"It is rare for one of so high a rank to submit to the bond," he commented.

Ben said just as casually, "It is rare for one to be as deserving as the one I am bonded to."

Thale's gaze fell on Nycole and warmed, "_That_ I believe."

"Excuse us," Ben snapped, "her people will want to speak with us."

One corner of Thale's mouth tilted up to smile mockingly, but he didn't make a verbal reply. Nycole rolled her eyes as Ben half-dragged her to where Evan and her father were waiting. Ronon and Teyla were no longer there. Nycole assumed they'd gone to the small building Thale had given the team as their quarters for the duration of their stay.

"That was interesting," her father remarked.

Nycole wasn't sure what to make of the look on John's face. Evan, on the other hand, was smiling.

"It was beautiful," he said. "You looked great. You haven't worn a dress in a very long time."

Nycole smoothed her hand over the soft fabric that flowed over her hips. "It is a lovely dress. Usually I prefer pants for tactical reasons, but it was nice wearing this to dance in. It wouldn't have been the same without the movement of the skirt."

"What was that dance, anyway?" John asked. "And why did Ronon seem to have some kind of problem with it?"

"It's a Satedan betrothal dance," she responded, deciding it was better to downplay the full meaning of the dance to her father since he was acting a bit strangely. "Ronon probably didn't like a non-Satedan knowing it… and I'm sure teaching it to a Wraith hybrid was an abomination in his eyes. But her mother was half-Satedan, and I thought it would be a good idea to be friendly to them since they're putting a great deal of trust in us when they have no real reason to do so."

John hummed thoughtfully, saying, "I guess that would explain it."

x FNM x

Ben watched Nycole pace as they waited for her father and Evan. At the moment, both men were outside with the Athosian and Satedan, discussing the situation and the teams that had come through the 'gate with Evan. Though they had both expected it, Nycole was agitated at not having been included in the discussions. Her father was shutting her out, and not only from what the mission had become. Despite this, Ben could sense no anger in her at the unexpected presence of Thale's group. She was optimistic about them, and he knew part of it was simply being near a hive again, even if it wasn't theirs.

"Thale is interested in you," he observed with a suddenness that should have been startling.

Usually, the only way to spring something on the other half of a bond was to say it the second it came to mind. Because of the intense nature of being around a hive not their own, and one that was volatile telepathically on top of that, he had been able to separate his thoughts from hers for a lot longer than he normally could. The fact that it could easily work the other way as well had been making him uneasy.

"I noticed," Nycole replied off-handedly, showing that she had been expecting him to bring it up.

"If he asks you to go with them, what will you say?"

Nycole looked up at him, her blue-green eyes wide. When she didn't immediately respond, he prodded her mentally. The chance that there was any doubt in her mind as to the answer to his question made him extremely agitated and worried.

"I don't know how to answer that."

"I see," he said coldly, turning away.

She grabbed his arm and swung him back around to face her. "I don't know how to answer because he did ask me to become part of their group. And I said no."

"Why?" The one word question was out of his mouth before he could think better of it.

"His offer didn't appeal to me," she answered simply.

He tried to touch her mind more deeply to see if she was being truthful. And though she was, there was something she was keeping hidden from him. But because he already knew she wasn't thinking about leaving him, he decided to let it go without prying. She was entitled to keep some secrets from him; he had his own that he hid from her.

_**To be continued…**_


End file.
